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HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
published: 06 February 2015
doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00007
Brain responses to musical feature changes in adolescent
cochlear implant users
Bjørn Petersen1,2 *, Ethan Weed 1,3, Pascale Sandmann4, Elvira Brattico5, 6, Mads Hansen1,7,
Stine Derdau Sørensen3and Peter Vuust 1,2
1Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark
2Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus, Denmark
3Department of Aesthetics and Communication – Linguistics, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
4Central Auditory Diagnostics Lab, Department of Neurology, Cluster of Excellence “Hearing4all”, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany
5Brain and Mind Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational Science, Aalto University, Aalto, Finland
6Cognitive Brain Research Unit, Institute of Behavioral Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
7Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
Edited by:
Teppo Särkämö, University of
Helsinki, Finland
Reviewed by:
Hidenao Fukuyama, Kyoto University,
Japan
Daniele Schön, CNRS, France
*Correspondence:
Bjørn Petersen, Center for
Functionally Integrative Neuroscience
(CFIN), Nørrebrogade 44, Building
10G, 5th Floor, Aarhus C 8000,
Denmark
e-mail: bjorn@pet.auh.dk
Cochlear implants (CIs) are primarily designed to assist deaf individuals in perception of
speech, although possibilities for music fruition have also been documented. Previous stud-
ies have indicated the existence of neural correlates of residual music skills in postlingually
deaf adults and children. However, little is known about the behavioral and neural correlates
of music perception in the new generation of prelingually deaf adolescents who grew up
with CIs. With electroencephalography (EEG), we recorded the mismatch negativity (MMN)
of the auditory event-related potential to changes in musical features in adolescent CI users
and in normal-hearing (NH) age mates. EEG recordings and behavioral testing were car-
ried out before (T1) and after (T2) a 2-week music training program for the CI users and
in two sessions equally separated in time for NH controls. We found significant MMNs
in adolescent CI users for deviations in timbre, intensity, and rhythm, indicating residual
neural prerequisites for musical feature processing. By contrast, only one of the two pitch
deviants elicited an MMN in CI users. This pitch discrimination deficit was supported by
behavioral measures, in which CI users scored significantly below the NH level. Overall,
MMN amplitudes were significantly smaller in CI users than in NH controls, suggesting
poorer music discrimination ability. Despite compliance from the CI participants, we found
no effect of the music training, likely resulting from the brevity of the program. This is the
first study showing significant brain responses to musical feature changes in prelingually
deaf adolescent CI users and their associations with behavioral measures, implying neural
predispositions for at least some aspects of music processing. Future studies should test
any beneficial effects of a longer lasting music intervention in adolescent CI users.
Keywords: cochlear implants, adolescents, music perception, mismatch negativity, music training, rehabilitation,
auditory cortex
INTRODUCTION
The cochlear implant (CI) is a neural prosthesis that provides pro-
foundly deaf individuals with the opportunity to gain or regain the
sense of hearing. The implant transforms acoustic signals into elec-
tric impulses, which are delivered to an electrode array implanted
within the cochlea. The electrodes stimulate intact auditory nerve
fibers at different places in the cochlea, thus mimicking the tono-
topic organization of the healthy cochlea (Loizou, 1999;McDer-
mott, 2004). The clinical impact of the device is extraordinary,
allowing postlingually deafened adults to restore speech compre-
hension and children to acquire language. Adults with prelingual
hearing loss may achieve some auditory alerting functions, but
rarely speech comprehension (e.g., Petersen et al., 2013a).
The majority of postlingually deafened adult CI users
achieve good speech perception in quiet but their percep-
tion of music remains poor. Several studies show that due
to low spectral resolution and compromised temporal fine-
structure information, discrimination of pitch, melody, timbre,
and emotional prosody is significantly poorer in CI users than in
normal-hearing (NH) listeners (Leal et al., 2003;Kong et al., 2004;
Gfeller et al., 2005, 2007;Olszewski et al., 2005;Cooper et al.,
2008;Timm et al., 2012;Agrawal, 2013). Nevertheless, there are
examples of CI users who seem to enjoy music after repeated lis-
tening (Gfeller and Lansing, 1991;Gfeller et al., 2005) and some
studies show significantly improved music discrimination after
computer-assisted training (Gfeller et al., 2000a, 2002b;Galvin
et al., 2007) and after long-term one-to-one musical ear training
(Petersen et al.,2012). These findings suggest that CI users ty pically
do not extract all of the (degraded) information available from the
CI signal (Moore and Shannon, 2009) and that targeted auditory
training maximizes the benefits of the implant (Fu and Galvin,
2008). Beyond the potential beneficial effects on music enjoy-
ment and social functioning, improved music perception may have
positive implications for the quality of life in CI users (Gfeller
et al., 2000b;Drennan and Rubinstein, 2008;Lassaletta et al., 2008;
Wright and Uchanski, 2012;Petersen et al., 2013b). Furthermore,
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Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
musical training might transfer to non-musical domains and may
have beneficial effects on speech perception in noisy surroundings
(Qin and Oxenham, 2003;Parbery-Clark et al., 2009;Won et al.,
2010) and on the ability to recognize gender and identity of the
speaker (Vongphoe and Zeng, 2005).
In this context, the new generation of prelingually deaf chil-
dren, who have grown up with the assistance of CIs and who have
now become teenagers,is of particular interest. Whilepostlingual ly
deafened CI users rely on auditory development formed by previ-
ous hearing experience in processing auditory information from
the CI, most current adolescent CI users are congenitally deaf
and have only heard sound through their implant. In addition,
most young CI users were not diagnosed until they were 2–3 years
old and subsequently received their CI after the first 3–5years of
life, that is, beyond the sensitive period for cochlear implantation
(Sharma et al., 2002b;Kral and Sharma, 2012).
Initially,cochlear implantation was offered primarily to adults,
whereas children were included in CI-programs at a later stage
(in Denmark since 1993) and only in moderate numbers. Thus,
information about this new population of CI users, their edu-
cational placement, and linguistic development has so far been
sparse. A recent Danish survey indicate that a majority of young
CI users communicate by auditory methods (36%) or auditory
methods supported by lip-reading (47%), whereas as few as 5%
depend on sign language. Background noise, small talk, slang
language, joking, irony, and phone conversation with strangers,
however, are reported to represent very challenging daily commu-
nicative situations (Rosenmeier and Møller Hansen, 2013). While
the findings are an encouraging indication of the overall success
of pediatric cochlear implantation (Bosco, 2012), these difficulties
highlight the need for continuing specialist teaching throughout
adolescence (Archbold et al., 2008;Geers et al., 2008;Harris and
Terlektsi, 2011). Adolescence is an age when self-identify is form-
ing and social relations, including music listening and preferences,
are particularly important in the life of a teenager (North et al.,
2000). Considering that well-functioning communicational skills
are crucial for adolescent CI users’ well-being, self-esteem, social
functioning, and educational prospects (Hansen, 2012), it is piv-
otal to understand the neural substrates of their speech and music
processing to further develop their hearing and speech skills. Nev-
ertheless, while a few behavioral studies have been conducted on
adolescent CI users who were prelingually deaf (Geers et al., 2008;
Gfeller et al., 2012), no information is currently at hand concern-
ing the neural correlates of musical sound perception and musical
training in adolescent CI users.
Auditory processing in CI users can be studied by recording
auditory event-related potentials (ERP) using electroencephalog-
raphy (EEG) (Sharma et al., 2002a;Pantev et al., 2006;Debener,
2008;Sandmann et al., 2009, 2014). One component of the audi-
tory ERP is the mismatch negativity (MMN), which is related
to change in different sound features such as pitch, timbre, har-
mony, intensity, and rhythm (Näätänen et al., 2001, 2007). In
contrast to subjective behavioral measures, the MMN represents a
reliable and objective marker for CI users’ability to accurately dis-
criminate auditory stimuli (Sandmann et al., 2010;Torppa et al.,
2012) typically elicited pre-attentively, in the absence of partici-
pants’ attention toward the stimuli. MMN latency and amplitude
reflect the magnitude of perceptual difference between deviant
and standard stimulus and are associated with auditory behavioral
measures (Näätänen et al., 2007).
A few MMN studies have investigated auditory brain process-
ing of music in children and adult CI users. For instance, Koelsch
(2004) reported timbre-evoked MMN responses with reduced
amplitudes in postlingually deaf CI users compared to NH control
participants. In a study with postlingually deaf adult CI recipients,
Sandmann et al. (2010) reported smaller MMN amplitudes for
frequency and intensity deviations in CI users compared to NH
controls, and found no robust MMNs to duration deviants in nei-
ther of the two groups. In a study with early-implanted CI children
(mean age 6 years, 10 months), Torppa et al. (2012) reported com-
parable magnitudes and latencies of MMN responses to three and
seven semitone pitch changes in CI and NH children, and signif-
icant MMNs to timbre only for a change from piano to cymbal
in both groups. Interestingly, Torppa et al. (2014) in a recent lon-
gitudinal study found enhanced development of P3a (attention
toward salient sounds) to pitch,timbre, and rhythm changes in CI
children who sang regularly, not observed in CI children who did
not sing.
Using a newly developed musical multi-feature paradigm,
Timm et al. (2014) found distinct MMN responses to pitch, tim-
bre, and intensity, but not to rhythm in postlingually deafened
adults with CI. In the present study, we wished to study for
the first time the neural prerequisites for music perception, and
particularly for musical feature change discrimination, in prelin-
gually deaf adolescent CI users by applying the same paradigm
as in Timm et al. (2014). We hypothesized that if any MMN
would be found to musical feature changes it would testify the
existence of neural predispositions for musical feature processing
even in prelingually deaf CI users who were not exposed to any
musical (or speech) sounds during the critical period of devel-
opment. Additionally, we wanted to test whether these adolescent
CI users would have any beneficial effect even from a short but
intensive music training program. For this purpose, the CI users
were measured before and after a musical intervention lasting
2 weeks (20 h), consisting of singing, rhythm, and ear training
as well as computer-assisted musical quizzes. We predicted that
adolescent CI users would show MMNs, which would differ from
those of NH peers, particularly with smaller MMN amplitudes
and longer latencies to changes in the acoustic properties of musi-
cal sounds, reflecting their impaired musical skills as in behavioral
tests. Moreover, we expected to observe a relation between the
behavioral effects of music training and the MMN amplitude and
latency.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
PARTICIPANTS
The participants were all recruited from Frijsenborg Efterskole
(post-school) in the city of Hammel, Denmark. Frijsenborg Efter-
skole has specialized in teaching hearing-aid (HA) and CI users
and employs teachers who are specialized in teaching hearing-
impaired pupils and provides modern aids that promote teaching
and communication, such as multi-frequency FM equipment.
The hearing-impaired pupils make up 25% of the students. The
remaining part of the pupils is typical NH age mates.
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Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
The participants were recruited through a procedure in which
they received oral as well as written information about the project.
Since all participants, except one, were below the age of 18 years,
their parents received written information also and were required
to give informed consent on behalf of their children. The par-
ticipants received no monetary compensation for their time. The
study was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki declaration
and approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Central
Denmark Region and is part of a broader study.
All of the school’s 12 adolescent CI users signed up for the
study, but, due to illness, one had to withdraw from the project.
The remaining 11 CI users (6 girls, 5 boys, Mage =17.0 years, age
range: 15.6–18.8 years), committed themselves to 2 weeks of music
training and two sessions of EEG recording and behavioral tests –
one before and one after the training period. In the following, T1
and T2 refer to EEG recordings and behavioral tests administered
before and after the 2-weeks intervention period, respectively.
The CI participants had a severe-profound/profound con-
genital or prelingual hearing loss and had received their CI
at different points of time in childhood or adolescence (Mage
at implant =7.5 years; range: 2.2–14.9 years) between 1997 and
2011, with the majority of participants implanted between 2001
and 2003. The mean implant experience was 9.5 years (range:
1.8–15.2). Nine CI users had bilateral implants, in all cases
received sequentially (Mage at implant 2=12.0 years; range: 10.5–
16.6 years; mean experience w. CI 2 =5.2; range: 0.1–6.2) and
two CI participants had unilateral implants combined with a
contra-lateral HA. All of the participants used the Nucleus Free-
dom device from Cochlear Corporation. All CI participants had
NH, monolingual Danish-speaking parents. The clinical and
demographic data of the 11 CI participants are shown in Table 1.
The NH reference group consisted of 10 participants (2 girls,
8 boys; Mage =16.2 years, age range: 15.3–17.0 years), who com-
mitted themselves to two sessions of EEG recording and tests with
a 14-day-interval. The NH reference group followed their nor-
mal school schedule during the project and received no musical
training. By testing the NH participants twice, we acquired mea-
surements that could be used for direct comparisons with the CI
group before and after training.
Musical background
To account for past and recent musical training and experience,
the participants filled out a questionnaire concerning their musi-
cal background. All NH participants had attended music classes
in primary school, as had all CI participants except one. Four CI
participants had sung in a choir, which was only the case for two in
the NH group. Two in each group stated that they had played in a
band at some point. Four CI users had receivedmusical instr ument
lessons, which was also the case for five NH participants, typically
guitar, bass, or drums and in all cases for a short period of time.
Based on this information, we judged the musical background in
the two groups to be comparable.
THE MUSIC TRAINING PROGRAM
The music training program aimed at strengthening the partici-
pants’ perception of the fundamental resources in music: pitch,
rhythm, and timbre in a combination of active music-making
sessions and computer-based listening exercises. The active train-
ing part totaled 20 h, scheduled over 6 days, and distributed over
2 weeks. The activities were formed by three elements: rhythm
training, singing, and ear training and were led by two masters’stu-
dents from Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus and the first author,
Table 1 | Clinical and demographic data of the 11 participants in the CI group.
Participant
(gender)
Age at project
start (years)
Etiology of
deafness
Side of
first
implant
Contra-
lateral
use of HA
CI 1
experience
(years)
CI 2
experience
(years)
Use of
sign-
languagee
Use of
lip-
readinge
Ability to
speak on
the phone
CI GROUP
CI 1 (F) 17.8 aCong. non-spec. L 10.1 5.9 4 5 X
CI 2 (F) 15.5 bPendred R X 4.1 1 2 X
CI 3 (F) 16.5 Unknown L 11.1 5.6 5 5 X
CI 4 (M) 16.6 cCMV L X 3.0 1 2 X
CI 5 (M) 18.8 Cong. non-spec. R 9.9 5.7 4 2
CI 6 (M) 17.3 Cong. non-spec. R 11.4 6.1 3 4 X
CI 7 (F) 16.2 Pendred R 11.8 5.0 3 3
CI 8 (M) 16.6 Meningitis L 13.4 6.0 3 2 X
CI 9 (F) 17.4 dHer. non-spec. R 15.7 6.2 4 3 X
CI 10 (M) 16.7 CMV L 1.8 0.1 3 5 X
CI 11 (F) 17.6 Cong. non-spec. L 12.0 6.1 5 5 X
Mean 17.0 9.5 5.2 3.3 3.5
Range (15.6–18.8) (1.8–15.2) (0.1–6.2)
aNon-specified congenital hearing loss.
bPendred Syndrome.
cCytomegalovirus.
dNon-specified hereditary hearing loss.
eIndicated on a scale where 5 is “everyday” and 1 is “never.”
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Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
who has previous experience with music training of adult and
pediatric CI users (Petersen et al., 2011,2012). Training took place
in the school’s two music classrooms, which were acoustically well
suited and well equipped.
Rhythm training
The intention of the rhythm training sessions was to establish a
fundamental sense of meter, period, and subdivision in a moti-
vating and physically engaging manner. The sessions involved
recurrent exercises including coordination of foot stomping, clap-
ping, and “rapping”. All exercises were in 4/4-time in tempos
between 80 and 110 BPM. The exercises were performed in a circle,
standing up.
Singing
The purpose of the singing training was to establish a sense of
basic musical attributes such as high/low, up/down, far/close, and
melodic direction. The singing training involved technical instruc-
tions about breath control/belly support and exercises, such as
glissando (up/down), and imitation of short phrases with focus
on long/short, strong/weak, and open/closed vowel sounds in
different vocal registers.
Ear training
The ear training part aimed at improving the participants’ general
music perception skills, particularly timbre, pitch, and melody
in a standard classroom setting. The group was introduced to
different instruments in live demonstrations. For perception of
pitch and melody, the participants were required to identify the
direction of two notes (up, down) or three notes (up-down, down-
up) or recognize familiar melodies presented on piano or other
instruments.
Musical quizzes
To support the ear training sessions, several computer applications,
presented as musical quizzes, were developed and made avail-
able through download from a website. The quizzes were adapted
and expanded versions of applications described in Petersen et al.
(2012), aiming to train discrimination of melodic contour,timbre,
melody, and rhythm. All quizzes were designed with a famil-
iarization part followed by a number of trials, which required
the user to match presented sounds with corresponding icons
on the screen. The participants were asked to train everyday for
10–20 min during the 2-weeks training period.
EEG RECORDING
Stimuli and procedure
Electroencephalography was recorded with a musical multi-
feature MMN paradigm (Vuust et al., 2011), in a version previously
adapted for a study with adult CI users (Timm et al., 2014).
The musical multi-feature paradigm presents musical standards,
pseudorandomly violated by different deviants in the context
of musical four-tone patterns. The four-tone patterns consist
of major triads arranged in an “Alberti bass” configuration, an
accompaniment commonly used in the Western musical culture.
In the adapted configuration, deviant patterns were similar to
standards, except that the third tone of the pattern was exchanged
with one of six deviants: (1) pitch deviant (Pitch1D1), which was
created by raising the standard note by two semitones, (2) pitch
deviant (Pitch2D2), which was created by raising the standard by
four semitones, (3) timbre deviant (GuiD3), which was created by
replacing the standard piano timbre with the sound of an electric
guitar, (4) timbre deviant (SaxD4), which was created by replac-
ing the standard piano timbre with the sound of a saxophone, (5)
intensity deviant (IntD5), which was created by reducing the orig-
inal intensity by 12 dB, and (6) rhythm deviant (RhyD6), which
was created by anticipating the third note by 60ms. In contrast
to the more subtle deviants encompassed in the original multi-
feature paradigm aimed at musicians and non-musicians (Vuust
et al., 2011), the deviants in the present study were enhanced,
thus taking the crude sound representation of the CI into con-
sideration. Each tone was in stereo, 44,100 in sample frequency,
and 200 ms in duration, having an inter-stimulus-interval (ISI) of
5 ms. For the RhyD6 deviant, the note prior to the third note was
shortened to 140 ms and the ISI between third and fourth note
extended to 65 ms. The position of the fourth note was preserved,
thus leaving the metric pulse uninterrupted. To make the stimuli
more musically interesting, we changed the key every sixth mea-
sure, allowing for the six different types of deviants to appear in
four different keys. The order of the four possible keys (F, G, A, and
C) was pseudo-randomized, so that each key appeared six times
in the duration of the paradigm. The keys were kept in the mid-
dle register of the piano with the bass note between F3 and C4.
The stimuli were presented in Presentation software (Neurobe-
havioral Systems). The paradigm presented a total of 4608 stimuli,
making the duration of whole experiment approximately 18 min,
including two 1-min-pauses (Figure 1). For more details about
the paradigm, see Timm et al. (2014).
FIGURE 1 | “Alberti bass” patterns alternating between standard
sequence played with piano sounds and a deviant, here in the key of F.
Deviants were introduced randomly and patterns were pseudorandomly
transposed to the keys of G, A, or C with an interval of six bars. Each tone
was 200 ms in duration, with an ISI of 5 ms, yielding a tempo of
approximately 146 beats/min. Comparisons were made between the third
note of the standard sequence and the third note of the deviant sequence.
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Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
EEG data recording and analysis
Recording of EEG took place in an acoustically dampened room
at Frijsenborg Efterskole. Participants were seated in front of two
active loudspeakers (Genelec 8020B; Genelec Oy, Iisalmi, Finland)
placed to their left and right side with a 45° angle, approxi-
mately 0.5 m distance from the participants’ear. Participants were
instructed to ignore the auditory stimuli and watch an animated
subtitled movie presented without sound.
The stimuli were presented at 65dB SPL. CI users used their
everyday processor settings during the EEG session. To assure the
most comfortable level, participants were exposed to the stimuli
briefly before the EEG recording, thus getting an opportunity to
adjust their processor settings. To assure comparable conditions
for CI participants, bilateral CI users were asked to use only their
preferred implant and bimodally aided participants were asked to
remove their hearing aid.
Electroencephalography was recorded from 30 Ag/AgCl elec-
trodes placed according to the International 10–20 system and
using a BrainAmp amplifier system (Brainproducts, Gilching,Ger-
many). Two additional electrodes were placed below the left and
right eye to record the electrooculogram. For CI users, some chan-
nels could not be used because of the location of the CI device. Data
were recorded with a sampling rate of 500 Hz using the position
FCz as reference,and were analog filtered between 0.02 and 250 Hz.
Electrode impedances were maintained below 5 kΩprior to data
acquisition.
Electroencephalography data were analyzed with custom
scripts and EEGLAB 12.0.2.4b (Delorme, 2004) running in the
MATLAB environment (Mathworks, Natick, MA, USA). The pre-
processing was done using a two-step procedure, optimized for
artifact correction with independent component analysis (ICA)
(e.g., Debener et al., 2010). In the first step,the raw data were offline
filtered (1–40 Hz) and epoched into continuous 2 s intervals. Inter-
vals containing unique, non-stereotyped artifacts were rejected
(threshold: 3 SD). Infomax ICA was computed on the remaining
data. In the second step, the resulting ICA weights were applied
to the raw data filtered between 0.5 and 30 Hz. Note that the dif-
ferent filter settings for ICA training and ERP analysis was done
according to previous recommendations (Debener et al., 2010)
and accounted for the otherwise adverse effect of slow amplitude
drifts (<1 Hz) on ICA data decomposition. Independent com-
ponents representing eye-blinks, horizontal eye movement, and
electrocardiographic artifacts were identified semi-automatically
and were corrected from all datasets using CORRMAP (Viola et al.,
2009). Next, the data were segmented from -100 ms to 400ms rel-
ative to stimulus onset, and components representing CI artifacts
and other non-cerebral activity were identified by visual inspection
of various component properties. Independent components rep-
resenting CI artifacts were identified by the centroid on the side
of the implanted device, and by the time course of component
activity (for details on the reduction of CI artifacts by means of
ICA, see Gilley, 2006;Debener, 2008;Sandmann et al., 2009). The
total number of rejected ICA components was (means and SEM):
8±0.7 for the CI users before training, 9 ±0.7 for the CI users
after training, 10 ±0.7 for the NH listeners in the first session,
and 9 ±0.9 for the NH listeners in the second session. The data
were then pruned of unique, non-stereotyped artifacts (threshold:
3 standard deviations), and unused channels were interpolated
(mean: 2 electrodes; SEM: 0.4; range: 1–3 electrodes) using the
EEGLAB function eeg_interp.m, before re-referencing the data to
a common average reference. Finally,ERPs were obtained by time-
domain averaging, and the pre-stimulus interval from −100 to
0 ms was used for baseline correction.
MMN quantification
Difference waveforms were computed for each participant by sub-
tracting the response to the standard stimulus from each of the
six deviant stimuli. MMN’s were identified with the following
procedure. First, a grand-average difference wave was constructed
for each deviant by combining the difference waves from the two
recording sessions. This was done separately for the NH and the
CI group. Next, a 40 ms time window was defined, centered on
the most negative point at 75–205 ms in the grand-average differ-
ence waves. Finally, the MMN was measured as the peak amplitude
within the 40 ms window at the Fz electrode site for each partic-
ipant, deviant type, and recording session. To avoid erroneously
high or low values, three data points on either side of the peak
were included in the peak measurement (14ms duration in total).
MMN latency was measured as the peak amplitude between 75
and 205 ms at Fz electrode for each participant, deviant type, and
recording session.
BEHAVIORAL MEASUREMENTS
Musical multi feature discrimination task
All participants completed a music discrimination test before and
after the intervention period. The purpose was to obtain a behav-
ioral measurement of auditory discrimination accuracy of the
six musical deviants also used in the MMN paradigm. The test
was designed as a three-alternative forced-choice task (3-AFC),
in which the participants were presented with a similar four-tone
piano pattern as used in the EEG experiment, restricted, though,
to the key of C major. The pattern was presented thrice in a row,
twice in the standard, and once in the deviant condition. The
deviant patterns were presented equally often and were repeated
6 times in random order, occurring as either the first, the second,
or the third pattern, adding to a total of 36 trials. Participants
were instructed to click pictorial representations of the pattern,
indicating at which position the deviating pattern had occurred.
The scores were converted to percent correct hit rates for the six
deviant conditions.
Dantale II test. To measure speech comprehension, we used the
Danish speech material Dantale II (Wagener et al., 2003). In the
applied configuration, this sentence test adapts to the respondent’s
performance by increasing or decreasing the volume of the speech,
holding the background noise at a constant level. The result of the
test is given as the speech reception threshold (SRT) in this case
the signal-to-noise ratio for 50% word intelligibility. The partic-
ipants completed three lists, one training list and two trial lists,
thus testing perception of 100 words in total. All participants lis-
tened through headphones, as did the test administrator. Bilateral
CI users were allowed to use both CIs, whereas bimodally aided
users were required to switch off their HA but keep it plugged. This
measure was taken to secure that conditions were as comparable
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience www.frontiersin.org February 2015 | Volume 9 | Article 7 | 5
Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
as possible and to exclude any assistance from potential residual
hearing. CI users as well as NH participants completed the test
at both recording sessions (T1 and T2). The rationale for test-
ing NH participants twice was first to identify any effects of time
and, second, to identify learning effects, which have been reported
previously (Pedersen and Juhl, 2013).
STATISTICAL METHODS
MMN responses
In a first step, we tested for significant MMN amplitudes by per-
forming two-tailed one-sample t-tests on each of the deviant
difference waves using the ttest.m function in Matlab (Mathworks,
Natick, MA,USA). Following this, similar to previous MMN stud-
ies on CI users (Sandmann et al., 2010;Timm et al., 2014), we
tested for main effects of group, time, and deviant type, and
possible interactions between these effects by performing mixed-
effects ANOVAs separately on MMN amplitudes and latencies with
the between-subjects factor Group (NH and CI) and the within-
subjects factors Time (T1 and T2) and deviant type (1–6). Post hoc
tests were performed using Bonferroni-corrected t-tests.
Behavioral tests
The analysis of the behavioral data from the musical multi-feature
discrimination test was performed in a separate mixed-effects
ANOVA with the between-subjects factor of Group (NH and CI)
and the within-subjects factors of time (T1 and T2) and deviant
type (1–6).
To identify significant training effects and group differences as
measured by the Dantale II test, we analyzed the SRT values using
independent (between groups) and paired (within groups) t-tests.
Correlation analyses between EEG results, behavioral results,
and clinical data were done using Spearman’s product–moment
test. For all tests, the level for significance was set at 0.05, and
the significant results are reported. All tests were performed in
SPSS (IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 21.0. Armonk,
NY, USA: IBM Corp.).
RESULTS
MMN AMPLITUDES
For the CI users, the musical multi-feature paradigm elicited sig-
nificant MMNs for deviants GuiD3, SaxD4 , IntD5, and RhyD6 at
both T1 and T2. For the two pitch deviants, the CI users exhibited
a significant MMN only for Pitch1D1 and only at T1. For the NH
listeners, our analyses showedsig nificant MMNs foral l six deviants
at both times of testing, except for the T1 IntD5 (Figures 2A–C;
Tables 2 and 3).
Our mixed-effects analysis of the MMN amplitudes showed a
significant main effect of Group, F(1, 19) =8.43; p=0.009, dri-
ven by overall smaller MMN mean amplitudes in the CI users
compared to the NH participants (mean value for combined
MMNs across all deviants: CI users: T1: −0.54 µV, SD: 0.49,
T2 −0.47 µV SD: 0.58; NH controls: T1 −0.66 µV, SD: 0.61, T2
−0.94 µV, SD: 0.58).). Furthermore, we found a significant main
effect of deviant type [F(5, 95) =15.77; p<0.001], predomi-
nantly deriving from significantly larger amplitudes elicited by
the SaxD4 compared to the other five deviants. There was also a
significant interaction between Group and Time [F(1, 19) =7.3;
p=0.014] driven by a significantly larger overall MMN negativ-
ity in the NH group at T2 compared to the CI group (p=0.002;
NH: −0.94 µV; CI: −0.47 µV). The post hoc comparison of the
two groups at T1 was not significant. The Group by Deviant Type
interaction was non-significant. Also, the three-way interaction
Group ×Time ×Deviant Type was non-significant. Explorative
t-tests showed a significant difference between the MMN ampli-
tudes of the two groups for Pitch1D1 [t(1, 19) = −2.53; p=0.02],
GuiD3 [t(1, 19) = −2.32; p<0.037], and RhyD6 [t(1.19) = −2,38;
p<0.028], in each case driven by larger mean amplitudes in the
NH participants compared to CI users.
MMN LATENCIES
The mixed-effects analysis on MMN latencies showed a signif-
icant main effect of Group, F(1, 19) =83.55; p<0.001, driven
by overall shorter MMN mean latencies in CI users than in the
NH participants (mean value for combined MMN latencies: CI
users: 127.15, SD: 31.75, NH listeners: 141.97, SD: 31.40). Further-
more, we found a significant main effect of Time [F(1, 19) =5.05;
p=0.037], driven by overall longer MMN latencies in both
groups at T2 compared to T1 (mean latency difference: 2.43 ms).
Finally, we found a significant main effect of Deviant Type, F(5,
95) =258.66, p<0.001 and an interaction between Deviant Type
and Group, F(5, 95) =122.6, p<0.001. The three-way interaction
Group ×Time ×Deviant Type was non-significant.
Post hoc t -tests for mean latencies across T1 and T2 with
respect to Deviant Type showed that for CI users GuiD3 and RhyD6
deviants were significantly longer compared with MMN latencies
in the NH participants [GuiD3, t(1, 19) = −5.9; p<0.001; RhyD6,
t(1, 19) = −8.4, p<0.001]. In contrast, for deviants Pitch1D1,
Pitch2D2, and IntD5 , we found significantly shorter latencies in the
CI users compared to the NH group at T1and T2 [Pitch1D1,t(1,
19) =12.58; p<0.001; Pitch2D2,t(1, 19) =9.74; p<0.001; IntD5,
t(1, 19) =20.71, p<0.001] (Figures 2A–C;Tables 2 and 3).
BEHAVIORAL MUSICAL MULTI FEATURE DISCRIMINATION TEST
Our mixed-effects analysis showed a significant main effect of
Group, F(1, 19) =13.04; p=0.002, driven by an overall 19.72%
point lower score in CI users compared with NH participants.
Furthermore, the analysis showed an interaction between Deviant
Type and Group,F(5, 19) =13.79, p=0.001. According to post hoc
t-tests, this interaction was driven by significantly lower overall
hit rates by the CI users for discrimination of Pitch1D1 [T(5,
19) =5.27, p=<0.001], Pitch2D2 [T(5, 19) =4.13, p=0.001],
GuiD3 [T(5, 19) =2.41, p=<0.037], and IntD5 [T(5, 19) =2.63,
p=0.023] compared to NH controls. The groups did not differ
for the SaxD4 or RhyD6 deviants (Figure 3). We found no effect
of Time.
DANTALE II TEST
The CI users produced mean speech recognition threshold val-
ues of 1.0 at T1 and of 0.04 at T2, indicating a (non-significant)
improvement in their ability to recognize speech in background
noise. The CI users’mean SRT values were significantly higher than
those of the NH participants at both T1 and T2 (p<0.001) and
displayed also a high variability ranging from −3.9 to 10.9 dB SNR.
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Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
FIGURE 2 | (A–C) Grand-average ERPs and EEG voltage isopotential maps
for six types of deviants (vertical) in the two experimental groups atT1 (left)
and T2 (right). For each deviant, left panels show responses to the standard
(solid line) and to the deviant (dotted line). Right panels show difference
waves. Isopotential maps illustrate the difference between the responses
to deviants and standards averaged in an interval of ±3 ms around maximal
peak amplitudes. X-axis values are in milliseconds;Y-axis values are in
microvolts.
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Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
Table 2 | Amplitudes and latencies of the MMN in response to different musical features in CI users at T1 and T2.
CI users T1 results T2 results
Deviant Interval
(ms)
Peak amplitude
(µV)
tSD Latency
(ms) (SD)
Peak amplitude
(µV)
tSD Latency
(ms) (SD)
Pitch1D1 103–143 −0.45 −3.49** 0.43 125 (11.8) −0.27 −1.54 0.58 121 (9.7)
Pitch2D2 128–168 −0.19 −1.18 0.55 146 (10.2) −0.22 −1.72 0.42 150 (11.7)
GuiD3 125–165 −0.63 −6.41** 0.33 147 (8.8) −0.45 −3.80** 0.39 143 (11.8)
SaxD4 72–112 −0.88 −6.06** 0.51 92 (11.0) −0.88 −6.55** 0.44 92 (12.7)
IntD5 67–107 −0.42 −3.10* 0.45 84 (8.0) −0.36 −2.34* 0.51 90 (11.6)
RhyD6 152–192 −0.57 −5.24** 0.36 167 (10.2) −0.63 −4.62** 0.45 177 (7.2)
(*p =0.01; **p <0.001).
Table 3 | Amplitudes and latencies of the MMN in response to different musical features in normal-hearing controls atT1 and T2.
NH participants T1 results T2 results
Deviant Interval
(ms)
Peak amplitude
(µV)
tSD Latency
(ms) (SD)
Peak amplitude
(µV)
tSD Latency
(ms) (SD)
Pitch1D1 143–183 −0.68 −5.48** 0.39 163 (11.6) −0.57 −6.73** 0.27 163 (8.3)
Pitch2D2 158–198 −0.39 −3.45** 0.36 177 (12.6) −0.76 −5.05** 0.47 180 (10.2)
GuiD3 101–141 −0.86 −4.61** 0.59 116 (10.4) −1.13 −5.32** 0.67 127 (11.4)
SaxD4 68–108 −1.30 −6.94** 0.59 87 (7.2) −1.41 −5.62** 0.79 89 (7.8)
IntD5 132–172 −0.34 −1.98 0.54 155 (9.6) −0.42 −5.94** 0.22 150 (12.1)
RhyD6 126–166 −0.72 −5.24** 0.43 143 (11.1) −1.11 −15.56** 0.22 149 (9.4)
*p =0.01; **p <0.001.
FIGURE 3 | Box plot showing mean hit rates of the two groups for the
six deviants at T1 andT2. Whiskers (error bars) above and below the box
indicate the 90th and 10th percentiles. Solid black line represents the
median, gray line represents the mean. Dots represent outlying points.
Dashed line represents chance level.
The mean SRT for NH participants was −6.9 at T1 and −7.7 at
T2, which represented a significant improvement [t(1, 9) =3.31,
p=0.009] (Figure 4).
CORRELATIONS
Correlation analyses were performed for CI users between MMN
amplitudes and latencies and behavioral music discrimination
scores and Dantale II T2 results and demographic data. Because
our ANOVAs showed no main effect of Time, we computed values
that were averaged across T1 and T2 for MMN amplitudes and
behavioral music discrimination data.
For the MMN data, a significant positive association was
found between mean amplitudes for the GuiD3 (r=0.798) and
RhyD6 (r=0.605) and age, indicating that younger CI users
had larger MMN responses than older CI users for these two
deviants. Furthermore, we found a significant negative asso-
ciation between hearing age (implant experience) and mean
latency for the RhyD6 (r= −0.838), indicating that CI users
with higher hearing age had MMN responses with shorter
latency for this deviant (Figure 5). A similar non-significant
association was found for the SaxD4 deviant (r= −0.592,
p=0.055).
Hit rates for behavioral discrimination of the six different
musical deviants showed a general positive association with each
other. Significant correlations were found between discrimina-
tion of IntD5 and Pitch1D1 (r=0.699), GuiD3 (r=0.642), SaxD4
(r=0.907), and RhyD6 (r=0.789) and between RhyD6 and
Pitch2D2 (r=0.665) and SaxD4 (r=0.807). Further associations
were found between behavioral discrimination scores and Dantale
II SRTs, in all cases,however, driven by an extraordinarily high SRT
by a single outlier.
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Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
DISCUSSION
The current study measured behavioral and electrophysiological
correlates of music perception in prelingually deaf adolescents
before and after a 2-week music training program. A group of
age-matched NH listeners served as controls. Overall, the results
revealed smaller MMN amplitudes and shorter MMN latencies in
FIGURE 4 | Box plot showing mean speech recognition thresholds for
the two experimental groups atT1 and T2.Whiskers (error bars) above
and below the box indicate the 90th and 10th percentiles. Solid black line
represents the median, gray line represents the mean. Dots represent
outlying points. Note that a more negative value corresponds to a better
performance.
CI users than in NH listeners. More specifically, the adolescent
CI users showed robust MMN responses for deviations in timbre,
intensity, and rhythm. For pitch deviants, we found no consistent
MMNs in CI users, which was also reflected in the CI users’poor hit
rates for behavioral pitch discrimination. The findings suggest that
even though these adolescents received their implants beyond the
optimal age for cochlear implantation (Kral and Sharma, 2012)
and have formed their perception of sound solely through the
implant, their auditory pathways have been sufficiently developed
to allow some discrimination of details in music, predominantly
within timbre, timing, and intensity. The study complements pre-
vious MMN studies with adult and pediatric CI users (Sandmann
et al., 2010;Zhang, 2011;Torppa et al.,2012, 2014), showing poten-
tial ability also in prelingually deaf, late-implanted adolescent CI
users to process features of music, even when embedded in a
complex auditory context.
Consistent with our hypothesis, we found significantly dimin-
ished overall amplitudes in the CI users compared to NH controls.
The difference, however, reflected differential responses depend-
ing on deviant type, with smaller MMN amplitudes elicited by the
Pitch1D1, GuiD3, and RhyD6 deviants and comparable amplitudes
elicited by the SaxD4 and IntD5 deviants. In line with this, we found
significantly poorer overall behavioral discrimination scores,
which confirm that MMN responses for changes in various kinds
of stimuli are reflected in discrimination accuracy (Näätänen et al.,
2007). Contrary to our hypothesis, we found significantly shorter
overall MMN latencies in the CI users compared to NH peers.
Again the difference was linked to deviant type; GuiD3 and RhyD6
deviants showed significantly longer latencies, whereas the IntD5
and the two pitch deviants were elicited significantly earlier than
those of the NH reference. Latencies for pitch, however,should be
judged with caution, given the fact that the pitch MMNs were non-
significant for Pitch1D1 at T2 and for Pitch2D2 at both time points.
MUSIC TRAINING
For most of the young CI users, this project was their first expe-
rience with structured and targeted music making and certainly
challenging. Indeed, they generally responded with great enthusi-
asm to the different exercisesand tasks and also displayed a marked
progress in their musical competences. Nevertheless, in contrast
FIGURE 5 | Scatter plots illustrating the correlation between the mean MMN amplitude to the GuiD3 and age (left panel), mean amplitude to the RhyD6
deviant and age (middle panel), and mean MMN latency for the RhyD6 deviant and hearing age (=implant experience) in the adolescent CI users.
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Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
to our hypothesis, we were unable to observe any progress in the
young CI users’discrimination skills at either a neuronal or behav-
ioral level. This lack of progress could be due to the brevity of
the program. Moreover, the broad-spectrum and music-making
nature of the training may have been insufficiently focused to
reliably strengthen the specific auditory skills in demand for the
tests in such a short period of time. It is important to empha-
size, however, that because of interference with the participants’
school activities, an extended training period was not an option
and that the music-making approach was deliberately chosen to
ensure maximum appeal to the participants. Evenly important,
according to self-report, the CI participants spent much less time
training with the musical quizzes than requested. Despite instant
feedback and progressive design, the quizzes offered little excite-
ment in comparison with current computer games and may simply
have appeared less appealing. Future studies should investigate the
possible advantages of applications, preferably for smart phones or
tablet computers, which offer auditory training of music discrim-
ination skills in an adaptive, socially interactive, and game-like
design (Lee and Hammer, 2011).
Contrary to our predictions, we found an overall progress in
MMN amplitude in the NH group, who received no music train-
ing. We could speculate that NH subjects show training effects
simply by being a second time exposed to the same sound stim-
ulation (Paukkunen, 2011). Instead, CI users, even if they had a
musical training, did not show any advantage at T2, probably as a
consequence of their deficits in musical sound processing. To be
visible, the exposure to sounds in CI users should most likely be
very long and intensive, whereas in normal subjects some transient
neural effects are observable even already after 20 min of discrim-
ination training (Jäncke et al., 2001;Brattico et al., 2003;Lappe
et al., 2011).
RHYTHM
Previous behavioral studies with postlingually deaf CI users have
documented that discrimination of complex rhythm is difficult
(Leal et al., 2003;Kong et al., 2004;Drennan and Rubinstein,
2008). In that respect, we were encouraged to find that the ado-
lescent CI users were able to produce significant MMN responses
to a change in rhythm as fast as 60 ms and produce discrimi-
nation scores that were not significantly different from the NH
reference. This is an indication of the ability of these young CI
users to extract fast temporal information despite prelingual deaf-
ness and late implantation, as well as the accuracy with which
timing features are transmitted in current CI technology. Abil-
ity to discriminate rhythm may assist young CI users in general
when listening to music, especially for genres that tend to have
strong rhythmic elements paired with lyrics (Gfeller et al., 2012).
Moreover, poor perception of rhythm has been associated with
poor perception of syllable stress and dyslexia (Overy, 2003;Overy
et al., 2003;Huss, 2011), and it is possible that training of rhythm,
on a long-term, could form a beneficial part in auditory–oral
therapy for young CI users (Looi and She, 2010;Petersen et al.,
2012).
Our results are in contrast with Timm et al. (2014) who found
no robust MMN response to the rhythm deviant in their adult
CI users. The authors speculated that one of the sources to this
absence of MMN could possibly be that the relatively small devia-
tion of 60 ms was too difficult to extract, especially when embed-
ded in a complex auditory scene. There may be several sources
to the discrepancy between the two studies. First, the CI users
in the present study were significantly younger (mean age 17 vs.
43.5 years), which may influence neural processing of auditory
stimuli. Second, the adolescent CI users all used the most updated
implant device in contrast to the adult CI users’ selection of brands
and models, which might result in some differences in timing
accuracy. A minor difference in the way the rhythm deviant was
presented in the two studies may also have contributed to the
different results. In the present study, the position of the fourth
note was preserved, thus leaving the metric pulse uninterrupted.
In the Timm et al. (2014) study, the position of the fourth note
was altered in accordance with the early third note,thereby shifting
the metric pulse. Thus, the rhythm deviant in the present study
deviates in three ways. First, it cuts the preceding note short, which
could be perceived as a deviation of duration. Second, the third
note comes early, violating the rhythmic flow and, third,the fourth
note comes late, caused by the longer gap between notes 3 and 4.
By inspecting the difference wave plots for the rhythm deviant
(Figure 2C), it appears that this multifaceted deviation evokes not
only a significant MMN in the 143–173 ms window after stimulus
onset but also a consistent and even stronger negative peak around
325 ms. This effect is identical and consistent across groups and
time points and we speculate that it reflects a second MMN in
response to the late fourth note.
TIMBRE
Both the guitar and the saxophone deviants elicited significant
brain responses in our two experimental groups. This is in con-
trast to findings by Torppa et al. (2012) who in a study with CI
and NH children found significant MMNs only to a large change
from piano to cymbal but not to changes from piano to violin
or to cembalo. They did, however, find indications of a general
improvement with age in the children’s ability to detect changes
between instruments, which could partly explain this discrepancy.
Our findings are in line with Timm et al. (2014) who found simi-
lar strong MMN responses to timbre changes in postlingually deaf
adult CI users. Interestingly, in both studies the saxophone deviant
showed the largest effect compared to the remaining deviants and
amplitude and latency that were not significantly different from
those of NH listeners. It should be emphasized, however, that the
latency of the MMN for this particular deviant was quite differ-
ent in the two studies, elicited around 92ms in the present and
around 165 ms in the Timm et al. (2014) study. Since both the
stimuli and the experimental settings were identical, we speculate
that differences in age may be the primary source of this difference
in timing.
As opposed to the saxophone deviant, CI users’ MMN responses
to the guitar deviant showed significantly smaller amplitudes and
significantly longer latencies than those of NH controls, indicating
reduced discrimination accuracy. The neurophysiological findings
were reflected in behavioral performance in which the CI users
produced discrimination scores, which were comparable to the
NH level for the saxophone but not for the guitar deviant. This
suggests that the sound of a saxophone, which is characterized by
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Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
a slow attack and a soft tone, represents a larger deviation from the
piano tone than the sharp distinct sound of the guitar. Moreover,
in an MMN study,which is based on the theory of predictive cod-
ing (Baldeweg, 2006), an unexpected occurrence of a saxophone
sound in a stream of piano notes represents not only a change of
timbre but also a change in timing and intensity, which could also
partly explain the observed difference.
So are adolescent CI users as good or almost as good as NH peers
in discrimination of timbre? No, probably not. Discrimination of
timbre involves perception of several acoustic parameters, partic-
ularly the temporal envelope (rise time, duration, and decay) and
harmonic spectrum of a sound, and is usually poor in CI users
(Gfeller et al., 2002a;McDermott and Looi, 2004;Drennan and
Rubinstein, 2008;Spitzer et al., 2008;Timm et al., 2012). The fact
that the adolescent CI users were able to detect changes in timbre
does not necessarily mean that they would be able to recognize
a musical instrument. It does, however, indicate that they pos-
sess some basic prerequisites for developing this skill and that the
implant transmits sufficient spectral information to allow detec-
tion of changes in timbre (Koelsch, 2004). Previous studies have
showed enhanced abilities to discriminate timbre after computer-
assisted training (Fujita and Ito, 1999;Leal et al., 2003;Pressnitzer
et al., 2005;Driscoll et al., 2009) and long-term individual training
(Petersen et al., 2012). Improved perception of timbre may add
positively to the esthetic enjoyment of music listening and may
also be beneficial in other aspects of listening such as recognition
of gender or speaker in auditory-only acoustic communication,
which are notoriously challenging with CIs (Vongphoe and Zeng,
2005).
PITCH
Except for the Pitch1D1 deviant at T1, the CI group did not exhibit
significant MMN responses to changes in pitch of neither two nor
four semitones and produced pitch discrimination scores, which
were significantly below the NH level. This pitch discrimination
deficit may indicate that the neuronal connections of the auditory
pathways were not established in the appropriate time window of
opportunity, leaving the potential for developing pitch processing
abilities very limited (Sharma et al., 2005;Sharma, 2006). Despite
ability to produce significant MMNs for pitch deviants, the adult
CI users in the study by Timm et al. (2014) showed significantly
diminished amplitudes, longer latencies,and lower hit rates for the
two and four semitones pitch deviants compared to NH controls.
This indicates that, at least for small pitch change detection, the
advantages of postlingually deafened CI users, who rely on audi-
tory skills developed prior to their hearing loss, over prelingually
deaf adolescent CI users, whose auditory development is based
exclusively on implant experience, may be rather small.
Interestingly, Torppa et al. (2012) in a recent study found mag-
nitude and timing of MMN responses to three and seven semitone
changes of pitch in early-implanted CI children that were com-
parable to those of NH controls. The authors suggested that
harmonic components of the presented piano tones may be suf-
ficiently separated in frequency to allow accessibility of spectral
cues to a change in pitch to the CI children. While the chil-
dren in the Torppa et al.’ study had a mean age at switch-on
of 21.5 months (range 14–37 m), the adolescents in the present
study were implanted significantly later (mean age at switch-
on: 7.4 years). We speculate that the delayed stimulation of the
auditory system is the primary cause of the poor pitch pro-
cessing observed in the adolescent CI users. Furthermore, the
previous study used a multi-feature MMN paradigm, which pre-
sented repeated piano tones in contrast to the present study, which
presented deviants in a complex musical context and randomly
changing keys.
We observed a significant MMN for the PitchD1 at T1 but not
at T2, implying a reverse effect of the training. However, consid-
ering the intensive focus on pitch and melody included in both
the singing and ear training activities, we hardly believe that is
the case. More likely, the inconsistent pitch MMNs reflect the
suboptimal recording conditions and possible variability across
sessions in participant behavior, which may have prevented the
weak pitch responses from passing the statistical thresholds.Alter-
natively, pitch MMNs were elicited but could not be identified due
to overlap by other potentials. Finally, the rather short SOA used
here prevented identifying a latency longer than 200 ms. Consider-
ing that the NH children showed MMN latencies to pitch deviants
close to 200 ms, it may well be that we simply missed it.
INTENSITY
Electrical hearing produces a much narrower dynamic range than
acoustic hearing (Galvin et al., 2007;Veekmans et al., 2009). We
were therefore surprised to find MMN responses to the IntD5
deviant, which were not significantly different in amplitude from
those of the NH listeners. It should be emphasized, however, that
the NH responses were surprisingly weak for these deviant and
non-significant at T2, indicating a generally small effect of this
deviation. Furthermore, although significantly poorer than the
NH reference, the CI users’ hit rates for discrimination of inten-
sity were well above chance. This indicates that despite the limited
dynamics of the implant, the 12 dB decrement in intensity is trans-
mitted reliably even in prelingually deaf adolescent CI users. The
results are partly consistent with a previous MMN level-study with
adult CI users, in which Sandmann et al. (2010) found significant
MMN responses to a 12 dB intensity decrement but not to two
smaller 4 and 8 dB intensity decrements. Future studies should
investigate discrimination of changes of intensity in adolescent CI
users in more detail.
While our two experimental groups produced similar but small
MMN amplitudes in response to the IntD5 deviant, the latencies
differed significantly. The MMNs of the CI users peaked around
84 ms while those of the NH listeners peaked around 150 ms.
This difference may reflect different processing of this particu-
lar deviant. However, as with the MMN responses for pitch, we
cannot exclude the possibility that the latency values for inten-
sity in the CI group may reflect activity that is different from the
activity reflected in the later peaks among NH participants.
SPEECH PERCEPTION IN NOISE
The marked improvement in the CI users’ SRT s suggested a trans-
fer effect from the music training. The similar and significant
progress in the non-trained NH group, however, indicates that
these improvements are the results of a test learning effect, as
seen in previous studies (Pedersen and Juhl, 2013). The Dantale
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Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
II test requires the ability to identify words in spoken sentences in
background noise and subsequently match these with a matrix of
optional words on a computer screen, a complex task that relies
on both reading skills and working memory and may benefit from
previous exposure. These requirements may also explain the huge
variability observed in the CI group reflecting possible differences
in the participants’ linguistic and cognitive development (Burk-
holder and Pisoni, 2003). Naturally, the variance may also reflect
other factors such as history of hearing loss and CI functional-
ity. None such predictive factors, however, were identified in our
correlational analyses.
MUSICAL MULTI-FEATURE PARADIGM
Our results indicate that the fast, musical, multi-feature paradigm
presenting deviants embedded in a complex musical pattern can
elicit distinct MMNs not only in postlingually deaf adults but even
in prelingually deaf adolescent CI users. Since MMNs are elicited
pre-attentively with no behavioral task, this paradigm may be used
for objective evaluation of CI users’ auditory skills in general and
ability to discriminate musical sounds in particular. Because it is
fast with a recording time of only 20 min and highly flexible with
regard to both the nature and the deviation magnitude of the prop-
erties which it investigates, this paradigm could be a useful tool for
assessing auditory rehabilitation following cochlear implantation.
In a clinical context, MMN responses could be of relevance as an
objective marker for measuring auditory discrimination abilities
in CI patients, especially pediatric CI users, whose assessment of
auditory discrimination and implant outcome is challenging. The
paradigm does, however, run at a fast pace and a future revision
should evaluate the effects of a reduced tempo, allowing analysis
of effects in the 200–400 ms, particularly the P3a (Torppa et al.,
2012).
THE IMPACT OF HEARING AGE
The adolescent CI users in our study represented a huge range of
age at implantation as well as communication background. Never-
theless, apart from the indication of an association between higher
hearing age and shorter latencies for rhythm and saxophone, we
found none of these factors predictive of either neurophysio-
logical or behavioral performance. Especially with regard to the
behavioral tests, this suggests that skills associated with cogni-
tion, concentration, attention, and memory may have a stronger
impact than implant experience and prior use of sign language.
As an interesting single case, CI 5, who is profoundly deaf, raised
as a sign language user and who received his implant at the age of
9 years was able to score in the high average level of his group in
both speech and music tests.
LIMITATIONS
Recording and analyzing EEG with CI users represent a number
of challenges. Due to the position of the implant, some electrodes
cannot be used, resulting in a number of interpolated channels.
Furthermore, due to the electric signal from the implant, it is nec-
essary to use elaborate preprocessing procedures to reduce the CI
artifact (Sandmann et al., 2009;Viola et al., 2011), allowing inter-
pretation of the resulting evoked potentials of interest. Finally,
in this particular study, recordings were done in the field, thus
potentially degrading the signal-to-noise ratio as compared to
recordings made in the shielded settings of the laboratory. In sum,
these challenges may have resulted in data, which were less con-
sistent than desired. Furthermore, measuring ERPs in a group of
healthy individuals and a special group such as CI users implies an
intrinsic difficulty of picking up the same peak for both groups.
We cannot preclude that the applied peak-identification method,
which identified MMN peaks algorithmically and separately in the
two groups, erroneously may have led us to peaks from the two
groups that in fact belonged to different ERP components.
The adolescent CI users in this study belong to the first gen-
eration of children who were offered CIs. Since, at the time,
neo-natal hearing screening was not a standard procedure and
some concerns about the safety of the surgery existed, they were
in general both diagnosed and implanted later in childhood than
is typical today. Therefore, they may not be fully representative
of the future generations of early-implanted adolescents. We will,
however, argue that the study and its findings are relevant, particu-
larly considering the considerable number of teenagers worldwide
making up this generation.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Our findings provide novel insight on neural processing of musi-
cal sounds in a new generation of deaf adolescents, who have
grown up with the assistance of CIs. The results showed that
despite prelingual deafness and late implantation, adolescent CI
users possess prerequisites for some discrimination of musical
sounds, as indicated by their significant MMN responses particu-
larly to changes in timbre, rhythm, and intensity. Compared to a
NH reference, however, the CI users’ general discrimination abil-
ities were characterized by significantly weaker brain responses
and poorer behavioral performance. This was particularly true for
their discrimination of small changes in pitch, which showed a
severe deficit, reflected in inconsistent brain responses, and poor
behavioral performance. Evidently, perception of music – espe-
cially melody – is degraded in these adolescent CI users, as also
signified by the challenges observed in relation to singing. This,
however, does not necessarily reduce music appreciation. Unlike
postlingually deaf adult CI users, prelingually deaf CI users make
no comparisons with previous music listening experience and may
be quite satisfied with the representation provided by the implant,
perceiving possibly particularly the rhythmic content of music
(Gfeller et al., 2012). The lack of findings with an ear training pro-
gram lasting only 2 weeks in CI users shows their refractoriness
to auditory interventions. Thus, we encourage future research on
the effects of longitudinal music training, preferably involving a
combination of music making and training applications offering
an adaptive and game-like interface. As observed here, the great
compliance and enthusiasm of the participants indicate that such
measures could be relatively easily implemented.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to acknowledge all of the participants and
their parents for their unrestricted commitment to the study as
well as the staff at Frijsenborg Efterskole for invaluable help and
support in organizing and scheduling tests and training. Fur-
thermore, they wish to thank Susanne Mai, Minna Sandahl, and
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience www.frontiersin.org February 2015 | Volume 9 | Article 7 | 12
Petersen et al. Brain responses in adolescents with CIs
Anne Marie Ravn from the Department of Audiology, Aarhus
University Hospital and Jesper Dahl at Gentofte Hospital for
provision of clinical data and Professor Therese Ovesen at the
ENT department of Aarhus University Hospital for her help
and support. Finally, they thank Nynne Horn, Andreas Højlund
Nielsen, and Martin Dietz for assistance and counseling on EEG
recording and analysis. EEG facilities were generously provided
by Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus Uni-
versity Hospital. This work was supported by a grant from
the Danish Ministry of Culture’s Research Foundation (Bjørn
Petersen) and by the Cluster of Excellence “Hearing4all” (Pascale
Sandmann).
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Conflict of Interest Statement: The authors declare that the researchwas conducted
in the absence of any commercial orfinancial relationships that could be construed as
a potential conflict of interest. The Guest Associate Editor Teppo Särkämö declares
that, despite being affiliated to the same institution as author Elvira Brattico, the
review process was handled objectively and no conflict of interest exists.
Received: 20 April 2014; accepted: 07 January 2015; published online: 06 February
2015.
Citation: Petersen B, Weed E, Sandmann P, Brattico E, Hansen M, Sørensen SD
and Vuust P (2015) Brain responses to musical feature changes in adolescent cochlear
implant users. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 9:7. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00007
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