Research Projects

The study investigates the impact of hearing impairment and neurofeedback-based listening training on cognitive performance and listening effort in elderly individuals with and without hearing aids. It aims to understand the differences in cognitive performance and cortical activation between hearing-impaired older adults and healthy controls without hearing aids. The research will use various measures of cognition, such as the N-back test for working memory, Auditory P300 for selective attention, and Modified Flanker's test for executive function, to track cognitive changes associated with hearing loss and recovery from hearing aids. The study will use qEEG to record cortical activation during noisy speech listening and analyze EEG offline to obtain relative power for five frequency bands. Brain Avatar software will provide sLORETA-based cortical maps, and the difference between brain source activation will be used to construct a custom Z score training in neurofeedback. Hearing-impaired participants will be fitted with WDRC Wide Dynamic Range Compression hearing aids, and the study will use a randomized control trial (RCT) to validate the efficacy of neurofeedback-based listening training. The study will be called back after 6 months to assess retention of learning after training ceases, and the results will be compared with previously measured outcomes to establish treatment efficacy.