Rescuing auditory temporal processing with a novel augmented acoustic environment in a mouse model of congenital SNHL
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Summary: The reviewer and the editors both recognize that the study suggests a clear improvement of auditory sensitivity, at least to gaps, with early temporal enrichment, and agree on the quality of the work performed. However, the improvements brought by the new paradigm are small and not supported by strong statistics. Overall also this study seems sound but too specialized for a broader readership.
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Abstract
Congenital sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) affects thousands of infants each year and results in significant delays in speech and language development. Previous studies have shown that early exposure to a simple augmented acoustic environment (AAE) can limit the effects of progressive SNHL on hearing sensitivity. However, SNHL is also accompanied by “hidden hearing loss” that is not assessed on standard audiological exams, such as reduced temporal processing acuity. To assess whether sound therapy may improve these hidden deficits, a mouse model of congenital SNHL was exposed to simple or temporally complex AAE. Peripheral function and sound sensitivity in auditory midbrain neurons improved following exposure to both types of AAE. However, only exposure to a novel, temporally complex AAE significantly improved a measure of temporal processing acuity, neural gap-in-noise detection in the auditory midbrain. These experiments suggest that targeted sound therapy may improve hearing outcomes for children suffering from congenital SNHL.
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Reviewer #1:
This manuscript compares the effects of a novel versus a classical augmented acoustic environment protocole on partial improvement of congenital hearing loss. The new protocol is based on the idea that temporal structure, and in particular auditory gaps in the augmented environment should improve perception of temporal features in sounds, in particular of auditory gaps.
Technically sound, the study describes how the encoding of gap in the auditory midbrain (inferior colliculus, IC) of a mouse hearing loss model is affected by the novel temporally enriched paradigm with respect to control mice and to the classical paradigm. The study clearly confirms that augmented acoustic environments improve spectral tuning, and detection of sound features with respect to control animals in IC. IC neurons also appear to show a more robust …
Reviewer #1:
This manuscript compares the effects of a novel versus a classical augmented acoustic environment protocole on partial improvement of congenital hearing loss. The new protocol is based on the idea that temporal structure, and in particular auditory gaps in the augmented environment should improve perception of temporal features in sounds, in particular of auditory gaps.
Technically sound, the study describes how the encoding of gap in the auditory midbrain (inferior colliculus, IC) of a mouse hearing loss model is affected by the novel temporally enriched paradigm with respect to control mice and to the classical paradigm. The study clearly confirms that augmented acoustic environments improve spectral tuning, and detection of sound features with respect to control animals in IC. IC neurons also appear to show a more robust increase of sensitivity to amplitude changes (onsets and offsets) when the animals have gone through the temporal augmented sound environment, both in the presence and in the absence of background noise, as compared to the classical paradigm, at least if one considers the magnitude of the effects with respect to control. However, only few measures show a significant difference when directly testing between the classical and the temporally enriched paradigm. Thus, there is an overall impact of the temporal paradigm which is worth emphasizing as a small but likely useful increment of the auditory enrichment approach for improving hearing loss. This is a definitely interesting, even if somewhat expected result which could drive further studies on clinical practice. It seems however too specialized for broader readership. A few things in the presentation of the results could be improved, and behavioral data could eventually reinforce the message although it is not mandatory to make these results interesting :
A figure of the auditory enrichment setup would be nice, to better understand how this works. Are mice constantly submitted to the sounds? Are control mice in a more silent environment than normally housed mice?
The lack of behavioral data opens the question whether IC changes have actually an impact on perception. Although it is likely, it would be interesting to measure the magnitude of this impact.
What makes the study interesting is the tendential bias in favor of the temporal paradigm with respect to the classical one. This is however rarely significant in one to one comparisons for each sensitivity measure. To reinforce their point the authors could consider a multivariate statistical analysis (e.g. two way ANOVA) to show that over all their measures there is a significant improvement with temporal against classical.
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Summary: The reviewer and the editors both recognize that the study suggests a clear improvement of auditory sensitivity, at least to gaps, with early temporal enrichment, and agree on the quality of the work performed. However, the improvements brought by the new paradigm are small and not supported by strong statistics. Overall also this study seems sound but too specialized for a broader readership.
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