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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Optogenetic Stimulation of the Auditory Nerve
Published on: October 8, 2014
Neural representation of amplified speech sounds
Kelly L Tremblay1, Curtis J Billings, Lendra M Friesen
1Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98105, USA. tremblay@u.washington.edu
Objective:
To determine if (1) evoked potentials elicited by amplified speech sounds (/si/ and /[symbol: see text]/) can be recorded reliably in individuals, (2) amplification alters neural response patterns, and (3) different amplified speech sounds evoke different neural patterns.
Design:
Cortical evoked potentials were recorded in sound field from seven normal-hearing young adults in response to naturally produced speech tokens /si/ and /[symbol: see text]/ from the Nonsense Syllable Test. With the use of a repeated-measures design, subjects were tested and then retested within an 8-day period in both aided and unaided conditions.
Results:
(1) Speech-evoked cortical potentials can be recorded reliably in individuals in both aided and unaided conditions. (2) Hearing aids that provide a mild high-frequency gain only subtly enhance peak amplitudes relative to unaided cortical recordings. (3) If the consonant-vowel boundary is preserved by the hearing aid, it can also be detected neurally, resulting in different neural response patterns for /si/ and /[symbol: see text]/.
Conclusions:
Speech-evoked cortical potentials can be recorded reliably in individuals during hearing aid use. A better understanding of how amplification (and device settings) affects neural response patterns is still needed.
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