Deafness in early development can alter how the brain responds to sound, compromising the restoration of hearing with cochlear implants. We asked how the naïve brain responds to initial cochlear implant stimulation in children who are deaf. Results indicated large variability in initial responses. Deafness associated with GJB-2 mutations led to more uniformity in cortical responses than other etiologies. Responses associated with GJB-2 mutations were characterized by a response peak with large contributions from temporal and frontal regions of the brain. This response may reflect an early stage of auditory development. By contrast, another response type, typical of normal hearing children, received less contribution from frontal regions. Through consistent cochlear implant use, frontal regions of the brain may not be as strongly recruited. Effects of deafness in early development are heterogeneous, which may reflect differences in etiology of deafness and different stages of auditory development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/35149 |
| Date | 19 March 2013 |
| Creators | Yoo, Patrick |
| Contributors | Gordon, Karen A. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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