On the Optimal Extraction of Neural Correlates of Binaural Interaction for Bilateral Cochlear Implant Adjustments

Accessible neural correlates of binaural interaction might be useful for the objective adjustment of cochlear implants in a bilateral implantation. A possible candidate could be the beta-wave of binaural interaction components in auditory brainstem responses which has been shown to be an objective measure of binaural interaction. However a reliable and automated detection of this component capable of clinical use still remains a challenge and, moreover, it is mainly applied as discrete decision measure which does not allow for a quantitative assessment of binaural interaction. In this correspondence, we suggest a continuous timescale feature of binaurally evoked brainstem responses for the quantitative assessment of binaural interaction in bilateral cochlear implant users. The extraction of such a feature by morphological local discriminant bases has recently been introduced in the objective diagnosis of the central auditory processing disorder. We show that this feature could be optimal for the adjustment of cochlear implants in the sense that it is continuous and allows for a machine based analysis. It is concluded that morphological local discriminant bases allow for the extraction of a continuous time-scale correlate of binaural interaction which seems to be applicable to objective bilateral cochlear implant adjustments