Research Lab

Cochlear implants and neuroprosthetics

Over 1 million severely deaf patients have already had hearing restored through the use of cochlear implant devices. While these devices are a great help for patients who would otherwise be cut off from a world in which spoken communication remains central, these devices are far from perfect. We are working actively to develop better coding strategies for these devices that will hopefully result in better patient outcomes.

Pitch perception

Normally hearing people are remarkably good at detecting even only very small changes in the pitch of complex sounds. Without this ability we would be unable to hear musical melodies, discriminate sounds of tonal languages, or segregate different voices in a complex auditory scene. Much remains unknown about how the brain generates the this fundamental perceptual quality of “tone height” or “pitch”. Improving our understanding of this may be crucial if we are to improve neuroprosthetic devices.

Binaural hearing

Our auditory pathway is enormously sophisticated in how it combines the sound information from both ears to generate panoramic, spatial perceptions of sound. Sadly, deaf patients who rely on cochlear implants tend to have a much reduced ability to use binaural cues. We believe that it is possible to improve their abilities through better encoding technologies and we actively research how this might be achieved.

1. Fei Peng, Jennifer Bizley, Ryszard Auksztulewicz, Jan W. H. Schnupp. (2023) Dissociable neural correlates of multisensory coherence and selective attention. J Neurosci
2. Drew Cappotto, HiJee Kang, Kongyan Li, Lucia Melloni, Jan Schnupp*, Ryszard Auksztulewicz*. (2022) Simultaneous Mnemonic and Predictive Representations in the Auditory Cortex, Current Biology(32:11) (* co-corresponding authors)
3. Rosskothen-Kuhl, N., Buck, A. N., Li, K., & Schnupp, J. W.  Microsecond Interaural Time Difference Discrimination Restored by Cochlear Implants After Neonatal Deafness, Published Jan 2021, ELife, 498105;
4. Fei Peng, Jennifer Bizley, Ryszard Auksztulewicz, Jan W. H. Schnupp. (2023) Dissociable neural correlates of multisensory coherence and selective attention. J Neurosci
5. R Auksztulewicz, V Rajendran, F Peng, J Schnupp, Nicol Harper (2023) Omission responses in local field potentials in rat auditory cortex. BMC Biol.