Seminar: Neuroplasticity & Lessons Learned from Pediatric Cochlear Implantation

Despite the impoverished auditory signal cochlear implantation provides in comparison to the normal hearing, remarkable outcomes are testimony to the importance of the brain. Neuroplasticity underlies the ability of all implant recipients to benefit from this technology. In order for deaf children to achieve age appropriate speech and language, early implantation that minimizes the period of auditory deprivation is necessary. Implantation of younger children who brains are more plastic and not dominated by non-auditory input, is critical to optimizing outcomes, as is effective listening (brain) training. Surprising outcomes of early cochlear implantation, including complex children with other disabilities and eighth nerve deficiency are possible, and will be illustrated. Results of a study to predict the outcomes of pediatric cochlear implantation based on brain neuroanatomy as determined by pre-surgical magnetic resonance imaging will be presented. The long term goal of this research is to develop precision therapy to optimize outcome based on an individual child’s brain structure and function.

Nancy M. Young, M.D., is the Lillian S. Wells Professor of Pediatric Otolaryngology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is head of the Section of Otology and Neurotology, and Research Director, in the Division of Otolaryngology at the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. She is a Fellow of the Knowles Hearing Center of the Northwestern University School of Communication.

In 1991 Dr. Young founded the Lurie Children’s pediatric cochlear implant program which has grown to be one of the largest in the United States. She is a founding board member of the American Cochlear Implant Alliance. She co-edited, with Karen Iler Kirk PhD, Pediatric Cochlear Implantation: Learning and the Brain, a text published in 2016. Dr. Young’s current research collaborations are focused on use of brain neuroimaging to predict and improve cochlear implant outcomes.