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Biomedical Technology pp 145–161Cite as

Development of a Model of the Electrically Stimulated Cochlea

Part of the Lecture Notes in Applied and Computational Mechanics book series (LNACM,volume 74)

Abstract

Cochlear Implants (CIs) are implantable medical devices that can restore the sense of hearing in people with profound sensorineural hearing loss. Clinical trials assessing speech intelligibility in CI users have found large inter subject variability. One possibility to explain the variability are the individual differences in the interface created between electrodes and the auditory nerve. For example, the exact position of the electrodes in each cochlea may differ from one patient to another. Additionally the amount of functional auditory neurons might also vary considerably between CI users. In order to understand the variability, models of the voltage distribution of the electrically stimulated cochlea may be useful. With this purpose we have developed a model that allows to simulate the voltage distribution at different positions on the auditory nerve. Simulations show differences in the extracellular voltage of the spiral ganglions depending on the electrode positions and the cochlear size, which might explain some of the variability. Finally, the model of the electrically stimulated cochlea has been used to simulate the extracellular voltage patterns produced by different instrumental sounds. These patterns have been inserted in an automatic instrument classifier that helps to illustrate the mentioned variability.

Keywords

  • Cochlear implant
  • Finite element method
  • Electric field
  • Cochlea
  • Sound coding strategy
  • Instrument identification

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the valuable contributions to the development of the model from Prof. Antoni Ivorra, Marcel Farres and Nikos Papachristou from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. This work was supported by the DFG Cluster of Excellence EXC 1077/1 “Hearing4all”.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otolaryngology, Medical School Hannover, Cluster of Excellence “Hearing4all”, Karl-Wiechert-Allee 3, 30625, Hannover, Germany

    Waldo Nogueira, Waldemar Würfel, Richard T. Penninger & Andreas Büchner

Authors
  1. Waldo Nogueira
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  2. Waldemar Würfel
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  3. Richard T. Penninger
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  4. Andreas Büchner
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Waldo Nogueira .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

    Thomas Lenarz

  2. Institute of Continuum Mechanics, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Peter Wriggers

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Nogueira, W., Würfel, W., Penninger, R.T., Büchner, A. (2015). Development of a Model of the Electrically Stimulated Cochlea. In: Lenarz, T., Wriggers, P. (eds) Biomedical Technology. Lecture Notes in Applied and Computational Mechanics, vol 74. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10981-7_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10981-7_10

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