Hearing loss is a widespread condition that is linked to declines in quality of life and mental health. Hearing aids remain the treatment of choice, but, unfortunately, even state-of-the-art devices provide only limited benefit for the perception of speech in noisy environments. While traditionally viewed primarily as a loss of sensitivity, hearing loss is also known to cause complex distortions of sound-evoked neural activity that cannot be corrected by amplification alone. This Opinion article describes the effects of hearing loss on neural activity to illustrate the reasons why current hearing aids are insufficient and to motivate the use of new technologies to explore directions for improving the next generation of devices.

中文翻译：

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为什么助听器无法恢复正常听觉？


听力损失是一种普遍存在的疾病，与生活质量和心理健康下降有关。助听器仍然是首选的治疗方法，但不幸的是，即使是最先进的设备对于嘈杂环境中的语音感知也只能提供有限的好处。虽然传统上主要被视为敏感性丧失，但众所周知，听力损失也会导致声音诱发的神经活动发生复杂的扭曲，而这种扭曲无法仅通过放大来纠正。这篇意见文章描述了听力损失对神经活动的影响，以说明当前助听器不足的原因，并激励使用新技术探索改进下一代设备的方向。