Function of the human tympanic membrane

描述(申请人提供)：40年前，已经清楚地表明，鼓膜(TM或鼓膜)表面的声音诱导运动在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是如何影响听力功能的。我们建议结合一种新的研究技术来快速测量整个鼓膜表面的运动，并结合旧的技术来测量月骨运动(测量中耳的输出)。这些测量将在正常人身体耳以及手法引起的听骨链和鼓膜表面病变的耳中几乎同时进行。基本目的是了解测量到的鼓膜运动模式与到达内耳的声音刺激之间的关系。有证据表明，听骨链的严重破坏对鼓膜运动模式有很大影响，这将表明这些运动之间存在明显的耦合，并支持已发表的将复杂的鼓膜运动与中耳输出紧密联系起来的假说。如果反证听骨手法对鼓膜运动的影响很小，则表明复杂的鼓膜运动与中耳输出是分离的，并支持已发表的假设，即鼓膜的复杂运动对听骨运动和中耳输出的贡献很小。对鼓膜结构本身进行操作前后的鼓膜和砧骨运动进行比较的额外测量，将提供不同鼓膜运动模式对中耳输出的贡献的额外测试。这项工作还将量化各种听小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，这项工作可能会为新的手术前评估技术打开大门，以确定在鼓膜完整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纳和反射术更敏感，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.