Development and Comparison of Objective and Psychoacoustic Methods to Quantify Efferent Auditory Feedback

Context: 
The medial olivocochlear (MOC) system is a critical neural feedback loop that allows the brain to dynamically control the sensitivity of the auditory periphery, in particular on outer hair cells (OHCs). This system is believed to have a pivotal role for hearing in noisy environments. Numerous studies suggest its effectiveness varies greatly between individuals and that it declines particularly with age. Indeed, the low-/medium-spontaneous-rate synapses of the auditory nerve, which are impaired with age and/or noise exposure (cochlear synaptopathy), act as the primarily control of the gain applied by the MOC system on OHCs. Precise assessment of the MOC system is a vital need for understanding "hidden hearing loss" and developing future diagnostic protocols in clinical audiology . Internship Objectives:
 The main objective of this internship is to develop and compare two non-invasive methods to precisely measure the effect of the MOC system in humans. Empirical measurements will be conducted to assess the MOC reflex on a cohort of participants using two methods. The first method, objective, will be based on the measurement of TEOAEs (Transient Evoked Otoacoustic Emissions). The second method, subjective, will be based on psychoacoustic detection thresholds in a forward-masking paradigms.
Computational models of the peripheral auditory system will be used to optimize the experimental protocols and maximize the link between the measurements provided by the two methods. This computational approach will strengthen the theoretical and empirical link between the physiological (TEOAE) and perceptual (forward-masking) measures, thereby providing a more comprehensive and validated toolkit for evaluating the functional state of the efferent system across diverse individuals, which is a strong need for the clinical assessment of hidden hearing disorders. We are looking for a highly motivated M1 or M2 student. This project is ideal for a candidate interested in the intersection of experimental auditory neuroscience, computational modeling, and translational clinical research. You will gain hands-on experience in: -Human psychophysical and physiological auditory testing. -Programming experiments (e.g., in MATLAB/Python). -Working with computational auditory models. -Data analysis and statistical testing
. Environment & Supervision:
 The internship will be conducted within the Perception and Sound Design Team of the STMS lab (UMR 9912) at IRCAM in Paris ( https://www.stms-lab.fr ) under the supervision of Emmanuel Ponsot (CNRS). You will be joining a research group integrating auditory psychophysics, neurophysiology and computational modeling focusing on hidden hearing disorders.