Two-tone suppression reflects saturation of outer-hair-cell receptor currents.

Evidence

Frequency-dependent cochlear signal-transduction nonlinearities manifest as suppressive interactions between acoustic-stimulus components (Sachs and Kiang 1968 ; de Boer and Nuttall 2002 ; Versteegh and van der Heijden 2012 , 2013 ). The underlying mechanism is thought to be saturation of outer-hair-cell receptor currents (Geisler et al. 1990 ; Cooper 1996 ). Despite the importance of suppression for neural coding of complex sounds (e.g., Sachs and Young 1980 ), relatively little is known about suppression in listeners with cochlear hearing loss (Schmiedt et al. 1990 ; Miller et al. 1997 ; Hicks and Bacon 1999 ). Here we present preliminary data on firing-rate suppression, measured with tones, and with broadband noise, from ANFs in chinchillas (Chinchilla laniger ), following noise-induced hearing loss. Quantitative descriptions of suppression in the hearing-impaired auditory periphery will help guide novel amplification strategies, particularly for complex listening situations (e.g., speech in noise), in which current hearing aids struggle to improve speech intelligibility. — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3817

Frequency-dependent cochlear signal-transduction nonlinearities manifest as suppressive interactions between acoustic-stimulus components (Sachs and Kiang 1968 ; de Boer and Nuttall 2002 ; Versteegh and van der Heijden 2012 , 2013 ). The underlying mechanism is thought to be saturation of outer-hair-cell receptor currents (Geisler et al. 1990 ; Cooper 1996 ). Despite the importance of suppression for neural coding of complex sounds (e.g., Sachs and Young 1980 ), relatively little is known about suppression in listeners with cochlear hearing loss (Schmiedt et al. 1990 ; Miller et al. 1997 ; Hicks and Bacon 1999 ). — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3816

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines suppression operationally as suppressive interactions between acoustic-stimulus components rooted in outer-hair-cell saturation — the key term for the reader’s hearing physiology study.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: why do current hearing aids fail in speech-in-noise despite amplification, and could suppression-based models fix this?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3817; Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 3816