Function of the human tympanic membrane

描述（由申请人提供）：四十年前，人们清楚地证明，鼓膜（TM或鼓膜）表面的声音诱导运动在其空间响应和频率依赖性方面都是复杂的。目前尚不清楚这些复杂性如何影响听力功能。我们建议将联合收割机与测量镫骨运动（测量中耳输出）的旧技术结合起来，快速测量鼓膜整个表面的运动。这些测量将在正常人尸体耳以及具有听骨链和鼓膜表面的操纵诱导病变的耳中几乎同时进行。其基本目的是了解鼓膜运动的测量模式和到达内耳的声音刺激之间的关系。听骨链的严重破坏对鼓膜运动模式有很大影响的证明将表明这些运动的明确耦合，并支持将复杂的鼓膜运动与中耳输出紧密联系起来的已发表假设。一个反证明的小作用，听骨操作对鼓膜运动将建议复杂的鼓膜运动从中耳输出解耦，并支持已发表的假设，认为复杂的运动鼓膜贡献小听骨运动和中耳输出。在操纵鼓膜结构本身之前和之后比较鼓膜和镫骨运动的额外测量将提供鼓膜运动的不同模式对中耳输出的贡献的额外测试。这项工作也将量化各种听骨病变如何影响整个鼓膜的运动。由于鼓膜是中耳的一种结构，很容易用于活体人体功能的物理测量，这项工作可以为新的术前评估技术打开大门，以确定在鼓膜完好的情况下传导性听力损失的原因。它还将量化各种鼓膜异常对中耳功能的影响，从而允许评估可观察到的鼓膜病理本身是否可以解释测量的听力损失。这种潜在的临床全息技术应该比鼓室测量法和反射测量法更敏感，因为新技术关注的是鼓膜上每个位置的运动，而不是一些平均运动。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Forty years ago, it was clearly demonstrated that the sound-induced motions of the surface of the tympanic membrane (the TM or eardrum) are complicated in both their spatial response and frequency dependence. Still unknown is how those complexities affect hearing function. We propose to combine a new research technique to measure rapidly the motion of entire surface of the eardrum, with older techniques to measure stapes motion (a measure of the output of the middle ear). These measurements will be performed near simultaneously in normal human cadaveric ears as well as ears with manipulation induced pathologies of the ossicular chain and eardrum surface. The basic aim is to understand the relationship between the measured patterns of eardrum motion and the sound stimulus that reaches the inner ear. A demonstration that severe disruption of the ossicular chain has large effects on the patterns of eardrum motion will suggest a clear coupling of these motions and favor published hypotheses that tightly link complex eardrum motions to middle-ear output. A counter-demonstration of little effect of ossicular manipulations on eardrum motion will suggest complex eardrum motions are uncoupled from middle-ear output and favor published hypotheses that suggest complex motion of the eardrum contribute little to ossicular motion and middle-ear output. Additional measurements comparing eardrum and stapes motions before and after manipulating the eardrum structure itself will provide additional tests of the contribution of different patterns of eardrum motion to middle-ear output. This work will also quantify how various ossicular pathologies affect the motion of the entire tympanic membrane. Since the eardrum is one structure of the middle ear that is readily available for physical measurements of function in live humans, this work could open the door for new pre-surgical assessment techniques to determine the cause of conductive hearing loss in case of intact eardrums. It will also quantify the effect of various eardrum abnormalities on middle ear function, thereby allowing assessments of whether an observable eardrum pathology, by itself, can explain a measured hearing loss. Such potential clinical holographic techniques should be more sensitive than tympanometry and reflectometry because the new techniques look at the motion of every location on the eardrum rather than some average motion.