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Invitation Holy Hour ExpORL, Dept. Neurosciences     Series of lectures in hearing instrument technology What? Cochlear implant fitting aspects  Dr. Bas Van Dijk, Cochlear Friday, 25 March 2016, 13:30h-15:30h FM-communication and FM-technology  Sofie De Dycker, Phonak Belgium Friday, 15 April 2016, 13:30h-15:30 MEI: middle ear implants  Prof. Nicolas Verhaert, NKO-GH, UZ Leuven and ExpORL, KU Leuven Friday, 15 April 2016, 15:30h-17:30h Open fitting and related issues (occlusion, feedback, RITE fittings,...) Prof. Jürgen Kiessling, Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Germany Friday, 22 April 2016, 15:30h-17:30h Aspecten elektroakoestiek van microfoons, voorversterkers, calibratie  Patrick Maeyaert, ENMO Friday, 29 April 2016, 13:30h-15:30h BAHA: Bone anchored hearing aids: technology and audiology  Dr. Arjan Bosman, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre Friday, 29 April 2016, 15:30h-17:30h Where? Auditorium GA1, Gasthuisberg Herestraat 49 B-3000 Leuven     Copyright KU Leuven

Seminar Prof. Van Camp - 10 June 2016

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Invitation Holy Hour ExpORL, Dept. Neurosciences     Deafness and otogenetics: recent developments in diagnostics Prof. Guy Van Camp University of Antwerp When? Friday, 10 June 2016, 15:00h Where? Dept. of ORL-HNS, St Rafael Room Gb (blok h) Kapucijnenvoer 33 B-3000 Leuven Please reply to this email if you are planning to attend the presentation.     Copyright KU Leuven

Seminar Robin Gransier - 25 February 2016

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Invitation Holy Hour ExpORL, Dept. Neurosciences     Towards the objective fitting of cochlear implants Robin Gransier Research Seminar in framework of doctoral education When? Thursday, 25 February 2016, 17:15h Where? Meeting Room ExpORL (7th floor) O&N II - KU Leuven Herestraat 49 B-3000 Leuven Please reply to this email if you are planning to attend the presentation.     Copyright KU Leuven

Seminar Simon Doclo - 1 March 2016

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Invitation Holy Hour ExpORL, Dept. Neurosciences     Design and evaluation of binaural speech enhancement and cue preservation algorithms Prof. Simon Doclo University of Oldenburg When? Tuesday, 1 March 2016, 12:00h Where? Seminar room 04.226 (HP 1) O&N II - KU Leuven Herestraat 49 B-3000 Leuven Please reply to this email if you are planning to attend the presentation. We will provide sandwiches. You can order one at a later date.     Copyright KU Leuven

Seminar Alejandro Valdes Lopez - 12 February 2016

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Invitation Holy Hour ExpORL, Dept. Neurosciences     Investigating the Applicability of Single-channel EEG in Cochlear Implant Users Alejandro Valdes Lopez Trinity College Dublin When? Friday, February 12, 2016, 13:00h Where? Seminar room 05.210 (HP 8) O&N II - KU Leuven Herestraat 49 B-3000 Leuven Please reply to this email if you are planning to attend the presentation.     Copyright KU Leuven

ERC starting grant - Individualised and self-adapting sound processing for cochlear implants

Cochlear implants (CIs) are successful auditory prostheses that enable people with deafness to hear
through electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve. In a CI sound processor, a sound signal is converted into a sequence of electrical pulses. This conversion entails many parameters that should ideally be fine-tuned (fitted) for every individual patient, to account for various anatomical and physiological differences. In current clinical practice, devices are fitted during the initial rehabilitation and yearly thereafter. As fitting is very time consuming, only the bare minimum number of parameters is fitted individually. However, for many other parameters, for which currently the same default values are used for all patients, better speech understanding can be achieved with individual fitting. Apart from the fitting, CIs do not take into account the neural or perceptual effects of stimulation.

Recently prof. Tom Francart obtained a grant of 1.7M EUR from the European Commission (ERC starting grant ISIFit), which gave us the unique opportunity to setup a research project on individualized objective fitting of cochlear implants. Five researchers will work on his project, which started in November 2015 and will run for five years.

The objective of this project is to provide better fitting to individual patients by developing a closed-loop CI that automatically adjusts its fitting and sound processing based on the neural response to speech. To achieve this, we will (1) objectively measure speech understanding, by recording the electroencephalogram (EEG) in response to ecological speech signals, (2) automatically fit a wide array of sound processing parameters accordingly using a genetic algorithm, and (3) develop a wearable closed-loop CI that continuously records the EEG and adjusts the fitting in real-life situations. This will lead to a better understanding of speech perception of people with a hearing impairment, an objective measure of speech intelligibility with many applications in diagnostics, a method to automatically fit CIs, and a novel closed-loop CI. For the patient this means improved speech intelligibility in noise and therefore better communication and quality of life. For the clinic this means improved efficiency and the ability to better fit devices.

Click here to download an introductory presentation about this grant.