Search bioRxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/bioRxiv

bioRxiv · 10.64898/2026.01.27.702044

Peripheral phoneme encoding and discrimination in aging and hearing impairment

Wouters, M.·Gaudrain, E.·Dapper, K.·Schirmer, J.·Baskent, D.·Ruettiger, L.·Knipper, M.·Verhulst, S.
View original source ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

HighlightsO_LISpeech EEG shows age- and OHC-related vulnerability of high-CF envelope coding. C_LIO_LISpeech EEG shows low-CF envelope encoding stays intact with age. C_LIO_LIFine-structure contrast discrimination worsens with OHC loss in quiet. C_LIO_LIFine-structure contrast discrimination worsens with age in contralateral noise. C_LIO_LIPhoneme discrimination involving high-frequency contrasts remains robust with age. C_LIO_LIPeripheral coding strength is not directly reflected at behavioral level. C_LI Speech perception difficulties in noise are common among older adults and individuals with hearing impairment, but also occur among younger adults whose audiometric thresholds are within the clinically-normal range. We examined how aging, cochlear synaptopathy (CS), and outer hair cell (OHC) damage affect speech encoding and phoneme discrimination. Envelope-following responses (EFRs) to rectangular amplitude-modulated (RAM) tones and speech-like phoneme pairs were recorded in quiet using EEG, and behavioral discrimination was assessed in quiet, and with ipsilateral and contralateral noise. Stimuli were designed to target temporal envelope (TENV) or temporal fine structure (TFS) encoding. Results showed that RAM-EFR amplitudes decreased gradually with increasing age, consistent with emerging CS, while magnitudes of high-frequency TENV-based EFRs in quiet were most reduced in older hearing-impaired subjects with combined CS and OHC damage. In contrast, EFRs targeting low-frequency TENV encoding in quiet remained preserved. Behaviorally, discrimination of predominantly TFS-based phoneme contrasts worsened with OHC loss and age in quiet and contralateral noise, respectively, whereas discrimination of predominantly TENV-based contrasts showed no significant age effect. Considering that high-frequency contrasts are discriminated via place-based spectral cues, low-frequency contrasts rely on TFS, and the EFR reflects primarily TENV, this framework explains why EFRs decline for high-frequency cues without perceptual loss, while EFRs remain stable for low-frequency cues even as TFS-based discrimination deteriorates. These findings highlight the need to investigate how neural coding deficits relate to perception. Combining electrophysiological and behavioral measures might provide a framework for detecting subclinical auditory deficits to earlier diagnose age-related and hidden hearing loss.

Source connections

Explore related subjects

neurosciencePreprint

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Wouters, M., Gaudrain, E., Dapper, K., Schirmer, J., Baskent, D., Ruettiger, L., Knipper, M., Verhulst, S.. 2026-01-28. Peripheral phoneme encoding and discrimination in aging and hearing impairment. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.01.27.702044

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related preprints

bioRxiv2026

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Cell Types in Describing Neuronal Physiological Features

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) captures detailed gene expression profiles at scale, while patch-clamp recordings measure intrinsic neuronal electrophysiological properties. Modeling the relations between these two modalities remains a challenge. Here, we compare how well electrophysiological features can be predicted by traditional transcriptomic cell type classification, representations derived from a foundational model (scGPT) pretrained on large-scale scRNA-seq datasets, ion channel-coding genes, and highly variable genes. Using paired transcriptomic and electrophysiological patch-sequencing data from 495 human neurons from neurosurgical tissue, we find that cluster-level cell type representations consistently outperform highly variable gene selection, ion channel gene selection, and context-enriched scGPT embeddings. Notably, performance varies across model architectures and initializations, and the best results are obtained by combining the outputs of separate cell type and scGPT-based models. Together, these findings suggest that traditional discrete cellular classification is highly effective in predicting physiological features. For maximum performance it can be complemented by pretrained transformer models.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

A nonlinear inhibition pathway underlying cortical responses to tuned holographic optogenetic perturbations

Optogenetics enables causal manipulation of cortical activity. Perturbation responses can be counterintuitive due to network interactions, making theory essential for predicting them. Existing approaches often rely on linear approximations, which fail for many biologically relevant perturbations. Here we develop a nonlinear theory of responses to holographic perturbations in cell-type-specific recurrent networks with structured connectivity. We fit a nonlinear model to mouse V1 data, which shows cotuned-ensemble suppression: perturbing spatially clustered neurons with similar preferred orientations yields markedly stronger short-range suppression than perturbing untuned ensembles. We show that cotuned-ensemble suppression arises from a feature-tuned, nonlinear inhibition pathway implicating somatostatin-positive (SST) interneurons. The theory predicts that cotuned ensembles suppress parvalbumin-positive (PV) neurons but facilitate SST neurons, and links the degree of cotuned-ensemble suppression or facilitation to the variance of the SST response. This framework identifies mechanisms by which nonlinear inhibition sculpts cortical dynamics and establishes a predictive basis for targeted optogenetic interventions.

neuroscience↗
bioRxiv2026

Proteomic signatures of APOE ε4 across human tissues and cell types in Alzheimers disease

The apolipoprotein E {varepsilon}4 (APOE {varepsilon}4) allele is the strongest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimers disease (AD). However, the underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. This study included 1691 participants from the Religious Orders Study and Rush Memory and Aging Project (ROSMAP), 1226 participants from the Accelerating Medicines Partnership - Alzheimers Disease (AMP-AD) Diverse Cohorts Study, and 735 participants from the Alzheimers Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). To characterise APOE {varepsilon}4 molecular effects, we analysed proteomic data from plasma, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived astrocytes and neurons, as well as transcriptomic and proteomic data from multiple brain regions. The association of APOE {varepsilon}4 with AD neuropathology was also examined. APOE {varepsilon}4 carriers shared a plasma proteomic signature enriched for immune processes, irrespective of AD diagnosis. A machine learning classifier trained on this signature discriminated APOE {varepsilon}4 carriers from non-carriers in an independent cohort using CSF proteomics. APOE {varepsilon}4 carriage was associated with higher Braak stages and Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimers Disease (CERAD) score. However, only limited APOE {varepsilon}4-associated transcriptomic and proteomic changes were observed in bulk brain tissue, with poor cross-layer concordance. Proteomic analyses of iPSC-derived astrocytes and neurons further revealed cell-type-specific APOE {varepsilon}4-associated changes. APOE {varepsilon}4 is associated with a consistent proteomic signature across plasma and CSF. Its molecular effects in the brain differ across cell types, brain regions and molecular layers. These findings support the need for cell-type-resolved multi-omic studies to elucidate how APOE {varepsilon}4 confers AD risk.

neuroscience↗