Interaural electrode mismatch degrades bilateral cochlear implant binaural function.

Evidence

Limited success can be partially caused by an interaural mismatch of the place-of-stimulation in each cochlea. Pairing matched interaural CI electrodes and stimulating them with the same frequency band is expected to facilitate binaural functions such as binaural fusion, localization, or spatial release from masking. It has been shown in animal experiments that the magnitude of the binaural interaction component (BIC) derived from the wave-eV decreases for increasing interaural place of stimulation mismatch. This motivated the investigation of the suitability of an electroencephalography-based objective electrode-frequency fitting procedure based on the BIC for BiCI users. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1449

Categorization

• DEFINE: The BIC (binaural interaction component) is introduced here as a wave-eV-derived EEG measure that shrinks with interaural stimulation mismatch.
• XREF: Connects to binaural hearing physiology and objective audiological fitting approaches.