Transcranial Stimulation Combined With Auditory Training

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn if non-invasive brain stimulation (called transcranial stimulation) can enhance the benefits from auditory training in people who struggle to understand one talker when many people are talking at the same time. The main questions it aims to answer are: * Does transcranial stimulation improve speech-on-speech understanding in people who struggle with this task? * Does transcranial stimulation enhance the benefits of a commercially available auditory training program? Researchers will compare transcranial stimulation to sham stimulation (no stimulation is applied during the listening task). Participants will: * Receive login information to an online auditory training program to complete at home over 2 weeks * Visit the laboratory 4 times to receive transcranial stimulation while listening to speech-on-speech: once before at-home training, two times during the at-home training period, and once after at-home training has ended

Eligibility

Age range

50+ years

Sex

All

Healthy volunteers

No

Interventions

• Device
  Transcranial current stimulation

  The transcranial alternating current stimulation is delivered during the speech stimulus and the current matches the envelope of the target speech

• Behavioral
  Auditory training

  An at-home auditory training program that adaptively and interactively trains the listener in degraded speech, cognitive skills, and communication strategies

Location