EXC 1077:  Hearing for All: Models, Technology and Solutions for Diagnostics, Restoration and Support of Hearing

• Subject Area: Neurosciences ; Systems Engineering
• Term: from 2012 to 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 194654335

• Final Report Year: 2019

Final Report Abstract

The vision of the interdisciplinary cluster of excellence ‘Hearing4all‘ is to achieve better hearing for individuals with various degrees of hearing impairment (constituting more than 18% of the total population and about 50% of all people above 65). The cluster thus addresses the substantial need for functional individualized hearing devices in our ageing communication-driven society that support speech communication in everyday life. The principal investigators (PIs) pursued this goal by developing new diagnostic tools and a pathophysiology-based individualized therapeutic approach that stimulated the engineering of better hearing devices and ubiquitous assistive technologies, as well as the introduction of new auditory implants. By combining basic, clinical, translational and applied research with clinical service, engineering and applications the cluster performed cutting-edge hearing research and achieved unique innovations in rehabilitation technology. These include multilingual speech recognition tests, auditory midbrain implants or precise, aided patient performance prediction with machine learning, which aim at better diagnosis, better hearing devices and better assistive technology in hearing support and precision surgery. Research has been organized in seven interdisciplinary, highly flexible task groups that focus on three major research areas: A) Diagnostic characterization of the individual to optimally evaluate the hearing impairment, B) Optimizing hearing devices by applying theory-driven functional principles, C) Developing new assistive technological solutions to precisely tailor hearing support to individual needs in a variety of listening situations. The cluster has further advanced and linked the complementary research expertise on hearing devices and implants at the internationally recognized cluster sites in Oldenburg and Hannover. Both sites established sustainable joint structures across the participating universities, coordinating basic, clinical and translational research, i.e., the Excellence Centre for Hearing Research (Oldenburg/Hannover), the Joint Research Academy, and the Translational Research Centre integrating the work of physicists, engineers, psychologists, biologists, medical researchers and clinicians. Major achievements include two new interdisciplinary research buildings (NeSSy in Oldenburg, NIFE in Hannover), 9 new permanent professorships, 10 new junior research groups (of whom nearly all leaders have meanwhile achieved permanent professorships), the promotion of more than 50 postdoctoral fellows and junior group leaders to other positions in academia, clinic and industry, and the reception of prestigious science awards (among other two ERC starting grants and the German president’s award for technology and innovation). Various research projects related to the cluster were successfully funded, including a new CRC “Hearing Acoustics” and the continuation of the current cluster as Hearing4all 2.0 until 2025.

Publications

• (2013) Mesoporous silica films as a novel biomaterial: applications in the middle ear. Chem Soc Rev 42(9): 3847-3861
  Ehlert N, Mueller PP, Stieve M, Lenarz T, Behrens P
  
• (2014) Central auditory function of deafness genes. Hear Res 312: 9-20
  Willaredt MA, Ebbers L, Nothwang HG
  
• (2014) Perceptual consequences of different signal changes due to binaural noise reduction: do hearing loss and working memory capacity play a role? Ear Hear 35(5): e213-e227
  Neher T, Grimm G, Hohmann V
  
• (2014) Variations in microanatomy of the human cochlea. J Comp Neurol 522: 3245-3261
  Avci E, Nauwelaers T, Lenarz T, Hamacher V, Kral A
  
• (2015) Combination of MVDR beamforming and single-channel spectral processing for enhancing noisy and reverberant speech. EURASIP J Adv Sig Pr, 2015(1): 61
  Cauchi B, Kodrasi I, Rehr R, Gerlach S, Jukić A, Gerkmann T, Doclo S, Goetze S
  
• (2015) Cross-modal reorganization in cochlear implant users: Auditory cortex contributes to visual face processing. NeuroImage 121: 159-170
  Stropahl M, Plotz K, Schönfeld R, Lenarz T, Sandmann P, Yovel G, De Vos M, Debener S
  
• (2015) Do you hear the noise? The German matrix sentence test with a fixed noise level in subjects with normal hearing and hearing impairment. Int J Audiol 54 (sup2): 71-79
  Wardenga N, Batsoulis C, Wagener KC, Brand T, Lenarz T, Maier H
  
• (2015) Enhanced audio-visual interactions in the auditory cortex of elderly cochlear-implant users. Hear Res 328: 133-147
  Schierholz I, Finke M, Schulte S, Hauthal N, Kantzke C, Rach S, Büchner A, Dengler R, Sandmann P
  
• (2015) Exploring miniaturized EEG electrodes for brain-computer interfaces. An EEG you do not see? Physiol Rep 3(4): e12362
  Bleichner MG, Lundbeck M, Selisky M, Minow F, Jager M, Emkes R, Debener S, De Vos M
  
• (2015) L-type calcium channel Cav1.2 is required for maintenance of auditory brainstem nuclei. J Biol Chem 290(39): 23692–23710
  Ebbers L, Satheesh SV, Janz K, Rüttiger L, Blosa M, Hofmann F, Morawski M, Griesemer D, Knipper M, Friauf E, Nothwang HG
  
• (2015) Multichannel signal enhancement algorithms for assisted listening devices. IEEE Signal Proc Mag 32(2): 18-30
  Doclo S, Kellermann W, Makino S, Nordholm S
  
• (2015) Positron emission tomography imaging reveals auditory and frontal cortical regions involved with speech perception and loudness adaptation. PLoS One 10(6): e0128743
  Berding G, Wilke F, Rode T, Haense C, Joseph G, Meyer GJ, Mamach M, Lenarz M, Geworski L, Bengel FM, Lenarz T, Lim HH
  
• (2015) Spatial release from masking in simulated cochlear implant users with and without access to low-frequency acoustic hearing. Trends Hear 19: 2331216515616940
  Williges B, Dietz M, Hohmann V, Jürgens T
  
• (2015) The emerging framework of mammalian auditory hindbrain development. Cell Tissue Res 361: 33-48
  Nothwang HG, Ebbers L, Schlüter T, Willaredt MA
  
• (2015) Unobtrusive ambulatory EEG using a smartphone and flexible printed electrodes around the ear. Sci Rep 5:16743
  Debener S, Emkes R, De Vos M, Bleichner M
  
• 2015) The multilingual matrix test: Principles, applications, and comparison across languages: A review. Int J Audiol 54 (sup2): 3-16
  Kollmeier B, Warzybok A, Hochmuth S, Zokoll MA, Uslar V, Brand T, Wagener KC
  
• (2016) A comparative study of seven human cochlear filter models. J Acoust Soc Am 140: 1618-1634
  Saremi A, Beutelmann R, Dietz M, Ashida G, Kretzberg J, Verhulst S
  
• (2016) A simulation framework for auditory discrimination experiments: Revealing the importance of across-frequency processing in speech perception. J Acoust Soc Am 139(5): 2708-2722
  Schädler MR, Warzybok A, Ewert SD, Kollmeier B
  
• (2016) Adaptive speech dereverberation using constrained sparse multichannel linear prediction. IEEE Signal Proc Let 24(1): 101-105
  Jukić A, van Waterschoot T, Doclo S
  
• (2016) Age-related differences in lexical access relate to speech recognition in noise. Front Psychol 7:990
  Carroll R, Warzybok A, Kollmeier B, Ruigendijk E
  
• (2016) Aging effects on the binaural interaction component of the auditory brainstem response in the Mongolian gerbil: Effects of interaural time and level differences. Hear Res 337: 46-58
  Laumen G, Tollin DJ, Beutelmann R, Klump GM
  
• (2016) Biohybrid cochlear implants in human neurosensory restoration. Stem Cell Res Ther 7(1):148
  Roemer A, Köhl U, Majdani O, Klöß S, Falk C, Haumann S, Lenarz T, Kral A, Warnecke A
  
• (2016) Cross-modal plasticity in higher-order auditory cortex of congenitally deaf cats does not limit auditory responsiveness to cochlear implants. J Neurosci 36(23): 6175-85
  Land R, Baumhoff P, Tillein J, Lomber SG, Hubka P, Kral A
  
• (2016) Dispersed hydrogel actuator for modiolar hugging cochlear implant electrode arrays. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 63 (11): 2294-2300
  Stieghorst J, Doll T
  
• (2016) Identifying auditory attention with ear-EEG: cEEGrid versus high-density cap-EEG comparison. J Neural Eng 13(6):066004. 1-13
  Bleichner MG, Mirkovic B, Debener S
  
• (2016) Indication of direct acoustical cochlea stimulation in comparison to cochlear implants. Hear Res 340: 185-190
  Kludt E, Büchner A, Schwab B, Lenarz T, Maier H
  
• (2016) Neurocognitive factors in sensory restoration of early deafness: A connectome model. Lancet Neurol 15(6): 610-621
  Kral A, Kronenberger WG, Pisoni DB, O`Donoghue GM
  
• (2016) Prevalence and audiological profiles of GJB2 mutations in a large collective of hearing impaired patients. Hear Res 333: 77-86
  Burke WF, Warnecke A, Schöner-Heinisch A, Lesinski-Schiedat A, Maier H, Lenarz T
  
• (2016) Processing mechanisms in hearing-impaired listeners: Evidence from reaction times and sentence interpretation. Ear Hearing 37(6): e391-e401
  Carroll R, Uslar V, Brand T, Ruigendijk E
  
• (2016) Roles for coincidence detection in coding amplitudemodulated sounds. PLoS Comput Biol 12: e1004997
  Ashida G, Kretzberg J, Tollin DJ
  
• (2016) Sentence recognition prediction for hearing-impaired listeners in stationary and fluctuation noise with FADE: Empowering the Attenuation and Distortion concept by Plomp with a quantitative processing model. Trends Hear 20: 2331216516655795
  Kollmeier B, Schädler MR, Warzybok A, Meyer B, Brand T
  
• (2016) Spectral and binaural loudness summation for hearing-impaired listeners. Hear Res 335:179-192
  Oetting D, Hohmann V, Appell JE, Kollmeier B, Ewert SD
  
• (2016) Target speaker detection with concealed EEG around the ear. Front Neurosci 10:349. 1-11
  Mirkovic B, Bleichner MG, De Vos M, Debener S
  
• (2016) Three-Dimensional force profile during cochlear implantation depends on individual geometry and insertion trauma. Ear Hear 38(3): e168-e179
  Avci E, Nauwelaers T, Hamacher V, Kral A
  
• (2016) Three-dimensional imaging of intracochlear tissue by scanning laser optical tomography (SLOT). Proc. SPIE 9689
  Tinne N, Nolte L, Antonopoulos GC, Schulze J, Andrade J, Heisterkamp A, Meyer H, Warnecke A, Majdani O, Ripken T
  
• (2017) A deficit in movement-derived sentences in Germanspeaking hearing-impaired children. Front Psychol 8:689
  Ruigendijk E, Friedmann N
  
• (2017) Acoustic startle modification as a tool for evaluating auditory function of the mouse: Progress, pitfalls, and potential. Neurosci Biobehav R 77:194–208
  Lauer AM, Behrens D, Klump G
  
• (2017) Analyzing the trade-off between power consumption and beamforming algorithm performance using a hearing aid ASIP. Int Conf Embedded Computer Systems: Architectures, Modeling, and Simulation (SAMOS), 88-96
  Gerlach L, Payá-Vayá G, Liu S, Weißbrich M, Blume H, Marquardt D, Doclo S
  
• (2017) Auditory and non-auditory contributions for unaided speech recognition in noise as a function of hearing aid use. Front Psychol 8: 219
  Gieseler A, Tahden MA, Thiel CM, Wagener KC, Meis M, Colonius H
  
• (2017) Changed crossmodal functional connectivity in older adults with hearing loss. Cortex 86: 109-122
  Puschmann S, Thiel CM
  
• (2017) Concealed, unobtrusive ear-centered EEG acquisition: cEEGrids for transparent EEG. Front Hum Neurosci 11:163. 1-14
  Bleichner MG, Debener S
  
• (2017) EEG recording and online signal processing on Android: A multiapp framework for brain-computer interfaces on smartphone. BioMed Res Int 2017: 3072870
  Blum S, Debener S, Emkes R, Volkening N, Fudickar S, Bleichner MG
  
• (2017) Enhanced visual adaptation in cochlear implant users revealed by concurrent EEG-fNIRS. NeuroImage 146, 600-608
  Chen L, Stropahl M, Schönwiesner M, Debener S
  
• (2017) Exploring binaural hearing in gerbils (Meriones unguiculatus) using virtual headphones. PLoS One 12(4): e0175142. 1–24
  Tolnai S, Beutelmann R, Klump GM
  
• (2017) Human centromedian-parafascicular complex signals sensory cues for goal-oriented behavior selection. NeuroImage 152: 390-399
  Schepers IM, Beck AK, Bräuer S, Schwabe K, Abdallatb M, Sandmann P, Dengler R, Rieger JW, Krauss JK
  
• (2017) Induced cortical responses require developmental sensory experience. Brain 140(12): 3153-3165
  Yusuf PA, Hubka P, Tillein J, Kral A
  
• (2017) Intracortical microstimultion differentially activates cortical layers based of stimulation depth. Brain Stim 10: 684-694
  Voigt MB, Hubka P, Kral A
  
• (2017) On the relevance of auditory-based Gabor features for deep learning in automatic speech recognition. Comput Speech Lang 45, 21-38
  Castro Martínez AM, Mallidi SH, Meyer BT
  
• (2017) Physiological models of the lateral superior olive. PLoS Comput Biol 13(12): e1005903
  Ashida G, Tollin DJ, Kretzberg J
  
• (2017) Proteome analysis of human perilymph using an intraoperative sampling method. J Proteome Res 16: 1911-1923
  Schmitt HA, Pich A, Schröder A, Scheper V, Lilli G, Reuter G, Lenarz T
  
• (2017) Real-time implementation of a GMM-based binaural localization algorithm on a VLIW-SIMD processor. IEEE Int Con MultiI (ICME), 145-150
  Seifert C, Thiemann J, Gerlach L, Volkmar T, Payá-Vayá G, Blume H, van de Par S
  
• (2017) Scanning laser optical tomography for in toto imaging of the murine cochlea. PLoS One 12:e0175431
  Nolte L, Tinne N, Schulze J, Heinemann D, Antonopoulos GC, Meyer H, Nothwang HG, Lenarz T, Heisterkamp A, Warnecke A, Ripken T
  
• (2017) Simultaneous masking between electric and acoustic stimulation in cochlear implant users with residual low-frequency hearing. Hear Res 353: 185-196
  Krüger B, Büchner A, Nogueira W
  
• (2017) Spiral form of the human cochlea results from spatial constraints. Sci Rep 7(1): 7500
  Pietsch M, Aguirre Dávila L, Erfurt P, Avci E, Lenarz T, Kral A
  
• (2017) Synchronizing MIDI and wireless EEG measurements during natural piano performance. Brain Res 1716: 27–28
  Zamm A, Palmer C, Bauer AR, Bleichner MG, Demos ApP, Debener S
  
• (2017) The right temporoparietal junction supports speech tracking during selective listening: evidence from concurrent EEG-fMRI. J Neurosci 37(47): 11505-11516
  Puschmann S, Steinkamp S, Gillich I, Mirkovic B, Debener S, Thiel CM
  
• (2017) Toward automated cochlear implant fitting procedures based on event-related potentials. Ear Hear 38(2): e118-e127
  Finke M, Billinger M, Büchner A
  
• 2017. Cortical reorganization in postlingually deaf cochlear implant users: Intra-modal and cross-modal considerations. Hear Res 343: 128-37
  Stropahl M, Chen LC, Debener S
  
• (2018) A functional perspective on the evolution of the cochlea. In: Function and Dysfunction of the Cochlea (Petit C, Richardson G, eds): Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press
  Köppl C, Manley GA
  
• (2018) Adapting hearing devices to the individual ear acoustics: Database and target response correction functions for various device styles. Trends Hear 22: 2331216518779313
  Denk F, Ernst SMA, Ewert SD, Kollmeier B
  
• (2018) Analysis of eigenvalue decomposition-based late reverberation power spectral density estimation. IEEE Trans Audio Speech 26(6): 1102-1114
  Kodrasi I, Doclo S
  
• (2018) Audio-visual speech processing in age-related hearing loss: Stronger integration and increased frontal lobe recruitment. NeuroImage 175: 425-37
  Rosemann S, Thiel CM
  
• (2018) Comparing human and automatic speech recognition in simple and complex acoustic scenes. Comput Speech Lang 52: 123-140
  Spille C, Kollmeier B, Meyer BT
  
• (2018) Concurrent gradients of ribbon volume and AMPA-receptor patch volume in cochlear afferent synapses on gerbil inner hair cells. Hear Res 364: 81-89
  Zhang L, Engler S, Koepcke L, Steenken F, Köppl C
  
• (2018) Cortical activation patterns to spatially presented pure tone stimuli with different intensities measured by functional nearinfrared spectroscopy. Hum Brain Mapp 39: 2710-2724
  Bauernfeind G, Wriessnegger SC, Haumann S, Lenarz T
  
• (2018) Direct acoustic cochlear implants lead to an improved speech perception gap compared to conventional hearing aid. Otol Neurotol 39(9): 1147-1152
  Maier H, Lenarz T, Dolležal LV, Busch S
  
• (2018) Does hearing aid use affect audiovisual integration in mild hearing impairment? Exp Brain Res 236(4): 1161-1179
  Gieseler A, Tahden MA, Thiel CM, Colonius H
  
• (2018) Electric-acoustic forward masking in cochlear implant users with ipsilateral residual hearing. Hear Res 364: 25-37
  Imsiecke M, Krüger B, Büchner A, Lenarz T, Nogueira W
  
• (2018) Electrical stimulation of the midbrain excites the auditory cortex asymmetrically. Brain Stim 11(5): 1161-1174
  Quass GL, Kurt S, Hildebrandt KJ, Kral A
  
• (2018) Eventrelated potentials measured from in and around the ear electrodes integrated in a live hearing device for monitoring sound perception. Trends Hear 22: 2331216518788219
  Denk F, Grzybowski M, Ernst SM, Kollmeier B, Debener S, Bleichner MG
  
• (2018) Hearing aid fitting and fine-tuning based on estimated individual traits. Int J Audiol 57(sup3): S139-S145
  Völker C, Ernst SM, Kollmeier B
  
• (2018) Heat shock proteins in human perilymph: Implications for cochlear implantation. Otol Neurotol 39: 37-44
  Schmitt H, Roemer A, Zeilinger C, Salcher R, Durisin M, Staecker H, Lenarz T, Warnecke A
  
• (2018) Human plasma rich in growth factors improves survival and neurite outgrowth of spiral ganglion neurons in vitro. Tissue Eng Part A. 24(5-6):493-501
  Stolle M, Schulze J, Roemer A, Lenarz T, Durisin M, Warnecke A
  
• (2018) Interaural coherence preservation for binaural noise reduction using partial noise estimation and spectral postfiltering. IEEE Trans Audio Speech 26(7), 1261-1274
  Marquardt D, Doclo S
  
• (2018) Intracortical microstimulation modulates cortical induced responses. J Neurosci 38(36): 7774-7786
  Voigt MB, Yusuf PA, Kral A
  
• (2018) Longterm delivery of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) from nanoporous silica nanoparticles improves the survival of spiral ganglion neurons in vitro. PLoS One 13: e0194778
  Schmidt N, Schulze J, Warwas DP, Ehlert N, Lenarz T, Warnecke A, Behrens P
  
• (2018) Optimal neural inference of stimulus intensities. Sci Rep 8(1): 10038
  Monk T, Savin C, Lücke J
  
• (2018) Spike-conducting integrate-and-fire model. eNeuro 5: ENEURO.0112-18.2018
  Ashida G, Nogueira W
  
• (2018) The summating potential is a reliable marker of electrode position in electrocochleography: Cochlear implant as a theragnostic probe. Ear Hear 39(4): 687-700
  Helmstaedter V, Lenarz T, Erfurt P, Kral A, Baumhoff P
  
• (2018) Transcranial alternating current stimulation with speech envelopes modulates speech comprehension. NeuroImage 172, 766–774
  Wilsch A, Neuling T, Obleser J, Herrmann CS
  
• (2018) Visualization of the auditory pathway in rats with 18F-FDG PET activation studies based on different auditory stimuli and reference conditions including cochlea ablation. PLoS One 13(10):e0205044
  Mamach M, Kessler M, Bankstahl JP, Wilke F, Geworski L, Bengel FM, Kurt S, Berding G
  
• 2018) miR-96 is required for normal development of the auditory hindbrain. Hum Mol Genet 27:860-874
  Schlüter T, Berger C, Rosengauer E, Fieth P, Krohs C, Ushakov K, Steel KP, Avraham KB, Hartmann A, Felmy F, Nothwang HG
  
• (2019) A Riemannian modification of Artifact Subspace Reconstruction for EEG artifact handling. Front Hum Neurosci 13:141
  Blum S, Jacobsen N, Bleichner MG, Debener S
  
• (2019) Cathodic-leading pulses are more effective than anodic-leading pulses in intracortical microstimulation of the auditory cortex. J Neural Eng 16(3): 036002
  Voigt MB, Kral A
  
• (2019) Decoding selective attention in normal hearing listeners and bilateral cochlear implant users with concealed ear EEG. Front Neurosci 13:,720
  Nogueira W, Dolhopiatenko H, Schierholz I, Buechner A, Mirkovic B, Bleichner MG, Debener S
  
• (2019) DNN-based performance measures for predicting error rates in automatic speech recognition and optimizing hearing aid parameters. Speech Commun 106, 44–56
  Castro Martínez AM, Gerlach L, Payá-Vayá G, Hermansky H, Ooster J, Meyer BT
  
• (2019) Effects of directional sound processing and listener's motivation on EEG responses to continuous noisy speech: Do normal-hearing and aided hearing-impaired listeners differ? Hear Res 377: 260-270
  Mirkovic B, Debener S, Schmidt J, Jaeger M, Neher T
  
• (2019) Epidural recordings in cochlear implant users. J Neural Eng 16(5): 56008
  Haumann S, Bauernfeind G, Teschner M, Schierholz I, Bleichner MG, Buechner A, Lenarz T
  
• (2019) Evidence for the origin of the binaural interaction component of the auditory brainstem response. Eur J Neurosci, Sep 8
  Tolnai S, Klump GM
  
• (2019) Hearing-impaired listeners show increased audiovisual benefit when listening to speech in noise. NeuroImage 196: 261-268
  Puschmann S, Daeglau M, Stropahl M, Mirkovic B, Rosemann S, Thiel CM, Debener S
  
• (2019) Impact of different acoustic components on EEG-based auditory attention decoding in noisy and reverberant conditions. IEEE Trans Neural Systems Rehabilitation Engineering 27(4): 652-663
  Aroudi A, Mirkovic B, De Vos M, Doclo S
  
• (2019) Joint Estimation of Reverberation Time and Early-to-Late Reverberation Ratio from Single-Channel Speech Signals. IEEE Trans Audio Speech 27: 255–267
  Xiong F, Goetze S, Kollmeier B, Meyer BT
  
• (2019) Modeling nonlinear transfer functions from speech envelopes to encephalography with neural networks. Int J Psychol Studies 11(4)
  deTaillez T, Denk F, Mirkovic B, Kollmeier B, Meyer BT
  
• (2019) Multivariate discrimination of heat shock proteins using a fiber optic Raman setup for in situ analysis of human perilymph. Rev Sci Instrum 90: 043110
  Höhl M, Zeilinger C, Roth B, Meinhardt-Wollweber M, Morgner U
  
• (2019) STRFs in primary auditory cortex emerge from masking-based statistics of natural sounds. PLOS Computational Biology 15(1): e1006595
  Sheikh AS, Harper NS, Drefs J, Singer Y, Dai Z, Turner RE and Lücke J
  
• (2019) The aging cochlea: Towards unraveling the functional contributions of strial dysfunction and synaptopathy. Hear Res 376: 111-124
  Heeringa AN, Köppl C
  
• (2019) The effect of age-related hearing loss and listening effort on resting state connectivity. Sci Rep 9(1): 2337
  Rosemann S, Thiel CM
  
• (2019) Towards decoding selective attention from single-trial EEG data in cochlear implant users. IEEE Trans BioMed Eng
  Nogueira W, Cosatti G, Schierholz I, Egger M, Mirkovic B, Büchner A
  
• (2019) Which questions do children with cochlear implants understand? An eye-tracking study. J Speech Lang Hear R 62(2): 387-409
  Schouwenaars A, Finke M, Hendriks P, Ruigendijk E
  
• (2019). Intracochlear near infrared stimulation: Feasibility of optoacoustic stimulation in vivo. Hearing Research, 371, 40-52
  Baumhoff, P., Kallweit, N., & Kral, A.