Graeme Clark Collection

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    The effects of electrode position and stimulus period on the hearing sensations in a multiple-channel cochlear implant patient [Abstract]
    Tong, Y. C. ; Blamey, P. J. ; Dowell, R. C. ; Clark, Graeme M. ( 1981)
    Abstract not available due to copyright.
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    Perceptual dissimilarity and discrimination studies using two-electrode stimulation with a multiple-channel cochlear implant patient [Abstract]
    Dowell, R. C. ; Tong, Y. C. ; Blamey, P. J. ; Clark, Graeme M. ( 1981)
    Abstract not available due to copyright.
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    Meningitis after cochlear implantation: the risk is low, and preventive measures can reduce this further
    Wei, Benjamin P. C. ; Clark, Graeme M. ; O'Leary, Stephen J. ; Shepherd, Robert K. ; Robins-Browne, Roy M. ( 2007)
    Since the 1980s, more than 80 000 people have received cochlear implants worldwide. These implants are designed to enable people who are severely or profoundly deaf to experience sound and speech. Since 1990, implantation has become standard treatment for people who cannot communicate effectively despite well fitted hearing aids. Children who are deaf when they are born can perceive sound and learn to speak if they receive cochlear implants at a young age (ideally under 18 months). The use of cochlear implants has been thought to be safe. But since 2002 the number of patients with meningitis related to cochlear implantation has increased worldwide. Mortality and neurological complications after meningitis are high. We need to investigate the reasons for this and look at measures to reduce them.
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    Predicting speech perception results for children using multichannel cochlear implants [Abstract]
    Dowell, Richard C. ; Dettman, Shani J. ; WILLIAMS, SARAH ; Hill, Katie ; TOMOV, ALEXANDRA ; Clark, Graeme M. ( 2002)
    It is most helpful in counselling families considering cochlear implantation to have some ability to predict outcomes for individual hearing-impaired children. Speech perception results for open-set words and sentences have been collected for all children implanted with the Nucleus device in Melbourne. Assessments are available at approximately six month intervals following implantation, Data was collected for each child regarding type of hearing loss, duration and age at onset of profound hearing loss, age at implantation, pre and post-implant communication mode, developmental delay, speech coding scheme and implant experience. These data were used as predictor variables in step-wise multiple linear regression analyses with the speech perception scores as the dependent variables. Shorter duration of profound hearing loss, later onset of profound hearing loss, exclusively oral communication mode following implantation, and longer implant experience were associated with significantly (p < 0.00 I) improved open-set speech perception. The use of the SPEAK signal coding scheme was shown to provide significantly better speech perception performance for children (p < 0.00 I). Developmental delay was associated with poorer speech perception outcomes (p < 0.0 I). Over 50% of the variance in speech perception scores was accounted for by these variables. The study suggests that younger implantation for congenitally deaf children leads to improved speech perception results. On the other hand, the development of auditory language skills in implanted children may be as important as age at implantation in enhancing long term outcomes. Regression equations derived from these results can be used to predict outcomes for cochlear implant candidates with a reasonable accuracy.
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    Cochlear implants: a personal scientific journey [Abstract]
    Clark, Graeme M. ( 2002)
    Electrical stimulation of the auditory system to reproduce hearing commenced through academic curiosity, and the hope of helping deaf people. It received direction from neurophysiology, and later psychophysics and speech science. In the 1960s and 1970s there were many questions requiring answers before cochlear implants could become a practical reality. Key concerns were: (1) the cochlea was too complex for electrical stimulation to reproduce the coding of sound; (2) multiple electrodes inserted into the cochlea for the place coding of frequency could damage the auditory nerves to be stimulated; (3) speech was too complex to be reproduced by electrical stimulation; and (4) children born deaf would not develop the appropriate neural connectivity for speech understanding. The first questions were addressed on the experimental animal. Speech research on patients was only possible with the advent of silicon chip technology allowing the development of an implantable receiver-stimulator package. Initial research established proof of principle that connected discourse was possible with multiple electrode stimulation of the auditory nerve in severely and profoundly deaf people. The research has been developed industrially for the benefits to be provided on a widespread basis through clinics worldwide. Further research has resulted in continuing improvements so that the average profoundly deaf person can hear as well as someone with severe hearing loss using a hearing aid. There is still much research required to achieve high fidelity sound, hearing in noise, and totally implantable devices.
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    Histopathology of the binaural cochlear implant subject [Abstract]
    Yukawa, K. ; O'Leary, S. J. ; Clark, Graeme M. ( 2001)
    Binaural hearing improves speech reception in noise, and is necessary for sound localisation. Normal hearing subjects use both interaural time, and intensity, differences to localise sound. This study investigates why sound localisation in bilateral cochlear implantees is insensitive to interaural time differences (Hoesel 1993). We looked for evidence of neural degeneration in the auditory brainstem involved in binaural sound localisation, since this may have degraded the neural circuitry required to accurately code interaural time delays. Method: The brainstem of a bilateral cochlear implantee was prepared for light microscopy by embedding it in paraffin, sectioning at 10 mm and staining sections with thionine or Luxol fast blue (LFB). The histological sections were digitised with NIH Image and 3-dimensional reconstructions made of the cochlear nucleus (CN) and superior olivary complex (SOC) with AnalysePC. Within the CN and the SOC, cell number and size were estimated by the physical dissector technique following thionine staining, and myelination of the nerve fibres was estimated using the optical density method following LFB staining. Results: A reduction in cell size (from thionine staining) and myelination (from LFB staining) was seen in both the CN and the SOC. Conclusions: These finding are consistent with neural degeneration within the auditory pathways. This may have lead to a degradation of the neural circuitry required to accurately detect interaural time delays.
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    Cochlear implants in adults and children: comment
    Clark, Graeme M. ( 1997)
    This is a well-written review of the NIH Consensus report on cochlear implants for adults and children.
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    The Bionic ear towards 2000 and beyond: The William Carey Lecture 20th August 1998
    Clark, Graeme M. ( 1999)
    I consider it a great honour to have been invited to give the William Carey Lecture, especially when one considers how much Carey contributed to the welfare of people in India. He was an outstanding man with many gifts and wide-ranging interests and influence --in fields as diverse as botany, economics, medicine, print and communications technology, libraries, engineering, conservation, agriculture, social reform, astronomy and Indian religions. All his work was done in the name of God, and his Christian belief. My address is entitled The Bionic Ear: Towards 2000 and beyond. I want to emphasise from the start that research directions beyond the year 2000 are built upon the achievements of the past and the present. Furthermore, although we have made great progress with the Bionic Ear, we have some distance to go before we can give most people near normal hearing.
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    Speech perception in implanted children: influence of preoperative residual hearing on outcomes [Abstract]
    Cowan, R. S. C. ; Barker, E. J. ; Pegg, P. ; Dettman, S. ; Rennie, M. ; Galvin, K. ; Meskin, T. ; Rance, G. ; Cody, K. ; Sarant, J. ; Larratt, M. ; Latus, K. ; HOLLOW, RODNEY ; Rehn, C. ; Dowell, R. C. ; Pyman, B. ; Gibson, W. P. R. ; Clark, Graeme M. ( 1998)
    Since the first child was implanted with the Nucleus 22-channel prosthesis in Melbourne in 1985, several thousand children world-wide have now benefitted from this technology. More effective paediatric assessment and management procedures have now been developed, allowing cochlear implants to be offered to children under the age of 2 years. Improvements in speech processing strategy have also been implemented in the Nucleus implant system, resulting in increased mean speech perception benefits for implanted adults. Although a range of performance on formal measures of hearing, speech or language has been reported for children using implants, results from the first decade of implant experience consistently show that significant benefits are available to children receiving their implant at an early age. Reported speech perception results for implanted children show that a considerable proportion (60%) of paediatric patients in the Melbourne and Sydney clinics are able to understand some open-set speech using electrical stimulation alone. These results, and the upward trend of mean speech perception benefits shown for postlinguistically deafened adults have raised questions as to whether severely, or severely-to-profoundly deaf children currently using hearing aids would in fact benefit more from a cochlear implant. To investigate the potential influence of the degree of preoperative residual hearing on postoperative speech perception, results for all implanted children in the Melbourne and Sydney cochlear implant programs were analysed. Results showed that as a group, children with higher levels of preoperative residual hearing were consistently more likely to achieve open-set speech perception benefits. Potential factors in this finding could be higher levels of ganglion cell survival or greater patterning of the auditory pathways using conventional hearing aids prior to implantation. Conversely, children with the least preoperative residual hearing were less predictable, with some children achieving open-set perception, and others showing more limited closed-set benefits to perception. For these children, it is likely that preoperative residual hearing is of less significance than other factors in outcomes.
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    Control strategies for neurons modelled by self-exciting point processes [Abstract]
    Irlicht, Laurence S. ; Clark, Graeme M. ( 1995)
    Abstract not available due to copyright.