Function of the human tympanic membrane

描述（由申请人提供）：四十年前，已经清楚地证明了鼓膜（TM或鼓膜）表面的声音引起的运动在其空间响应和频率依赖性方面都很复杂。目前尚不清楚这些复杂性如何影响听力功能。我们建议将一种新的研究技术与测量镫骨运动（中耳输出的测量）的旧技术结合起来，以快速测量整个鼓膜表面的运动。这些测量将在正常人尸体耳朵以及因操作引起听骨链和鼓膜表面病变的耳朵中几乎同时进行。基本目的是了解测量的鼓膜运动模式与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之间存在明显的耦合，并有利于已发表的将复杂鼓膜运动与中耳输出紧密联系起来的假设。听小骨操作对鼓膜运动几乎没有影响的反证表明，复杂的鼓膜运动与中耳输出无关，并且支持已发表的假设，即鼓膜的复杂运动对听小骨运动和中耳输出贡献很小。比较操纵鼓膜结构本身之前和之后的鼓膜和镫骨运动的额外测量将为不同鼓膜运动模式对中耳输出的贡献提供额外的测试。这项工作还将量化各种听骨病理如何影响整个鼓膜的运动。由于鼓膜是中耳的一种结构，可随时用于对活人的功能进行物理测量，因此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，从而可以评估可观察到的鼓膜病理本身是否可以解释测量到的听力损失。这种潜在的临床全息技术应该比鼓室导抗测试和反射测量更灵敏，因为新技术着眼于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.