There was less variation in rate-level slopes across stimuli in impaired fibers, presumably attributable to the lack of suppression-induced reductions in slopes for complex stimuli relative to BF-tone slopes. Impaired rate-level slopes were on average shallower than normal for tones, and were steeper in only limited conditions. 3) Fibers with very steep rate-level functions for all stimuli had thresholds above approximately 80 dB SPL and very broad tuning, consistent with severe IHC and OHC damage. 2) Fibers with a wide dynamic range and shallow slope above threshold often retained sharp tuning, consistent with primarily inner-hair-cell (IHC) damage.

1) Fibers with rate-level functions that were similar across all stimuli typically had broad tuning, consistent with outer-hair-cell (OHC) damage. Three types of impaired responses were observed. Stimuli included best-frequency and fixed-frequency tones, broadband noise, and a brief speech token. The growth of auditory-nerve (AN) activity with sound level was compared in normal-hearing cats and in cats with a noise-induced hearing loss to test the hypothesis that AN-fiber rate-level functions are steeper in impaired ears. These results illustrate that AN fibers do not provide a simple representation of the basilar-membrane I/O function and suggest that both OHC and IHC damage can affect AN response growth.Ībstract = 'People with sensorineural hearing loss are often constrained by a reduced acoustic dynamic range associated with loudness recruitment however, the neural correlates of loudness and recruitment are still not well understood. Sloping saturation was observed less often in impaired fibers.

People with sensorineural hearing loss are often constrained by a reduced acoustic dynamic range associated with loudness recruitment however, the neural correlates of loudness and recruitment are still not well understood.

Auditory nerve fibers