New Discoveries in the Benefits and Outcomes of Cochlear Implantation

Cochlear implants (CI), hearing prostheses that bypass defective sensory hair cells in the cochlea have been shown to improve hearing for the hearing impaired. Due to the fact that they directly stimulate the acoustic nerve, CIs have been shown to have a profound impact in aiding individuals who are deaf or experienced significant hearing loss. Recent research has proven their enormous benefits in speech recognition, sound perception, as well as language development in children and adults.

The effectiveness of CIs is, however, affected by many factors, including the duration of deafness/hearing loss, implantation age, duration of use (among others) and, whereas recent studies have largely focused on the effects of CIs on language, further investigation needs to be paid to studying the effects of CIs on emotion processing, classification and overall development. This Research Topic, therefore, aims to bring together studies addressing recent discoveries in the benefits and challenges of Cochlear Implantation.

We welcome contributions that address, but are not limited to, the impact of:

- CIs on speech production and singing
- CIs on emotion processing and regulation
- CIs on speech quality perception
- CIs on spatial cue and environmental sound sensation
- Implementation side on performance and CI outcomes
- Addition of hearing aids to in achieving bimodal listening
- CIs’s benefits in attention, cognition and effort
- Training effect on CIs
- New predicative factors on CI performance
- Neuroimaging studies in CIs

Dr. Jing Chen is participating in ongoing research projects with SONOVA AG regarding auditory attention decoding for hearing impaired listeners, for which she has received research grants. The other Topic Editors declare no competing conflicts of interest.