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Effect of axon diameter and electrode position on responses to sinusoidally amplitude-modulated electric pulse-train stimuli

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Abstract

Purpose

Cochlear implant systems restore the sense of sound by stimulating auditory nerve fibers (ANFs) with surgically implanted electrodes. Neural activity elicited by electrical pulse-trains conveys sound information to the brain. Thus, it is important to understand how ANFs produce the temporal sequence of neural activity in response to sinusoidally amplitude-modulated (SAM) pulse-trains with a rate of 5,000 pulses/s. In this study, we evaluated the effects of axon diameter (1.2 to 4.6 μm) and the electrode-to-axon distance (0.525 to 1.00 mm) on the response to 100 Hz SAM pulse-trains using a computational ANF model.

Methods

The model uses a Hodgkin-Huxley computation that incorporates the kinetics of sodium and potassium channels and an adaptation component. Simulated responses were analyzed by computing vector strength (VS) and the amplitude of the fast Fourier transform component at the modulation component (F0 amplitude).

Results

Axon diameter significantly influenced neural responses to SAM pulse-train stimuli. As the axon diameter increased, the VS and F0 amplitude increased. However, the VS and F0 amplitude were less influenced by the electrode-to-axon distance.

Conclusions

Finally, we concluded that larger-diameter ANFs could more precisely convey temporal information of speech sound.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, University of Ulsan, Ulsan, 680-749, Korea

    Hyejin Yang & Jihwan Woo

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  1. Hyejin Yang
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  2. Jihwan Woo
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Correspondence to Jihwan Woo.

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Yang, H., Woo, J. Effect of axon diameter and electrode position on responses to sinusoidally amplitude-modulated electric pulse-train stimuli. Biomed. Eng. Lett. 5, 124–130 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13534-015-0181-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13534-015-0181-3

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