RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Cochlear Implant Benefits in Deafness Rehabilitation: PET Study of Temporal Voice Activations
JF Journal of Nuclear Medicine
JO J Nucl Med
FD Society of Nuclear Medicine
SP 60
OP 67
DO 10.2967/jnumed.107.044545
VO 49
IS 1
A1 Arnaud Coez
A1 Monica Zilbovicius
A1 Evelyne Ferrary
A1 Didier Bouccara
A1 Isabelle Mosnier
A1 Emmanuèle Ambert-Dahan
A1 Eric Bizaguet
A1 André Syrota
A1 Yves Samson
A1 Olivier Sterkers
YR 2008
UL http://jnm.snmjournals.org/content/49/1/60.abstract
AB Cochlear implants may improve the medical and social prognosis of profound deafness. Nevertheless, some patients have experienced poor results without any clear explanations. One correlate may be an alteration in cortical voice processing. To test this hypothesis, we studied the activation of human temporal voice areas (TVA) using a well-standardized PET paradigm adapted from previous functional MRI (fMRI) studies. Methods: A PET H215O activation study was performed on 3 groups of adult volunteers: normal-hearing control subjects (n = 6) and cochlear-implanted postlingually deaf patients with >2 y of cochlear implant experience, with intelligibility scores in the “Lafon monosyllabic task” >80% (GOOD group; n = 6) or <20% (POOR group; n = 6). Relative cerebral blood flow was measured in 3 conditions: rest, passive listening to human voice, and nonvoice stimuli. Results: Compared with silence, the activations induced by nonvoice stimuli were bilaterally located in the superior temporal regions in all groups. However these activations were significantly and similarly reduced in both cochlear implant groups, whereas control subjects showed supplementary activations. Compared with nonvoice, the voice stimuli induced bilateral activation of the TVA along the superior temporal sulcus (STS) in both the control and the GOOD groups. In contrast, these activations were not detected in the POOR group, which showed only left unilateral middle STS activation. Conclusion: These results suggest that PET is an adequate method to explore cochlear implant benefits and that this benefit could be linked to the activation of the TVA.