Utilizing Information Theoretic Approach to Study Cochlear Neural Degeneration

Abstract: Hidden hearing loss, or cochlear neural degeneration (CND), disrupts suprathreshold auditory coding without affecting clinical thresholds, making it difficult to diagnose. We present an information-theoretic framework to evaluate speech stimuli that maximally reveal CND by quantifying mutual information (MI) loss between inner hair cell (IHC) receptor potentials and auditory nerve fiber (ANF) responses and acoustic input and ANF responses. Using a phenomenological auditory model, we simulated responses to 50 CVC words under clean, time-compressed, reverberant, and combined conditions across different presentation levels, with systematically varied survival of low-, medium-, and high-spontaneous-rate fibers. MI was computed channel-wise between IHC and ANF responses and integrated across characteristic frequencies. Information loss was defined relative to a normal-hearing baseline. Results demonstrate progressive MI loss with increasing CND, most pronounced for time-compressed speech, while reverberation produced comparatively smaller effects. These findings identify rapid, temporally dense speech as optimal probes for CND, informing the design of objective clinical diagnostics while revealing problems associated with reverberation as a probe.