盲人感音神经性听力损失患者的听觉表现与皮层可塑性：双重感觉障碍的启示

文献信息

中文摘要

背景： 听力正常的盲人常表现出由代偿性跨模态神经可塑性驱动的听觉能力增强。然而，在双重感觉障碍个体中这些代偿优势是否持续存在仍不清楚。本研究考察了早盲、晚盲和视力正常个体的听觉加工与皮层可塑性，所有受试者均同时患有感音神经性听力损失。
方法： 参与者完成了听觉行为测试，包括工作记忆、频谱波纹辨别、时间调制检测和噪声下句子识别。听觉oddball任务评估注意和认知反应，并记录ERPs（N2、P3b）。
结果： 结果显示，伴有听力损失的晚盲个体在数字广度和时间调制任务中表现优于视力正常个体，但频谱分辨率、言语识别和ERP成分的组间差异在各条件下大多不明显。皮层源和功能连接分析揭示了不同的加工策略：视力正常个体在噪声下招募额叶控制区域，而晚盲个体依赖颞顶网络。
结论： 这些发现表明，在晚盲个体中，即使存在年龄相关性听力损失，视觉剥夺仍可在时间加工和工作记忆方面赋予其相对于视力正常同伴的选择性优势，而更广泛的知觉获益和电生理增强则有限。结合既往听力正常人群的文献来看，这些结果提示，当伴随感音神经性听力损失时，代偿性跨模态可塑性可能受到部分限制。

英文摘要

BACKGROUND: Blind individuals with normal hearing frequently exhibit enhanced auditory abilities driven by compensatory cross-modal neuroplasticity. However, it remains unclear whether these compensatory advantages persist in individuals with dual sensory impairment. This study investigated auditory processing and cortical plasticity in early-blind, late-blind, and sighted individuals, all presenting with concurrent sensorineural hearing loss.
METHOD: Participants completed auditory behavioral tests, including working memory, spectral ripple discrimination, temporal modulation detection, and sentence recognition in noise. Auditory oddball tasks assessed attentional and cognitive responses, and ERPs (N2, P3b) were recorded.
RESULT: Results showed that late-blind individuals with hearing loss performed better than sighted individuals in digit span and temporal modulation tasks, but group differences in spectral resolution, speech recognition, and ERP components were largely not evident across conditions. Cortical source and functional connectivity analysis revealed distinct processing strategies, with sighted individuals recruiting frontal control regions under noise, whereas late-blind individuals relied on a temporal-parietal network.
CONCLUSION: These findings indicate that in late-blind individuals, visual deprivation confers selective advantages over sighted peers in temporal processing and working memory even in the presence of age-related hearing loss, whereas broader perceptual benefits and electrophysiological enhancements are limited. Viewed in the context of prior literature in normal-hearing populations, these results suggest that compensatory cross-modal plasticity may be partially constrained when accompanied by concurrent sensorineural hearing loss.