BASIC AND APPLIED RESEARCH ON COCHLEAR PROSTHESES

一组临床医生和 基础科学家的任务是阐明电学中的基本机制 刺激听神经，并提供合理的基础 设计更好的人工耳蜗体以缓解语音接收 严重失聪人群的缺陷。在本授权期内， 心理物理、言语知觉、言语产生、诱发电位和 系统地收集了21枚种植体的CT数据 患者，其中一些人进行了超过4年的纵向研究 好几年了。这项临床工作和我们相关的动物研究正在开始 找出福利差异很大的基本因素 由植入者获得。尽管拟议的研究高度 互动性，按方法论分为5个项目：(1) 植入物中表征言语接受的人类知觉研究 主题，并将其与 受试者和语音处理方案。(2)言语研究 用来描述植入者语言中发生的变化的产物 受试者和理解自我倾听在言语中的作用。(3) 电诱发电位的评估以确定其在诊断中的作用 为不能提供可靠行为的患者调整处理器 答复(例如婴儿)，并作为估计数量和 螺旋神经节细胞群的分布。(4)解剖学研究 应用CT扫描和组织学技术研究肿瘤的形态 颞骨结构对人工耳蜗术和人工耳机的影响 植入后确定电极位置。(5)电生理 在猫身上描述听神经纤维对 以耳内电刺激来描述言语的好坏 信息由现有的语音处理器编码，目的是 改进那些处理器。这些项目与生物物理 有髓听神经纤维的电刺激模型 将与人体内电流流动的解剖模型相耦合 耳蜗；它们提供测试模型和 模型为辅助解释提供了统一的理论基础 关于结果的。

The overall goal of this renewal application by a group of clinicians and basic scientists is to elucidate the fundamental mechanisms in electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve, and to provide a rational foundation for the design of better cochlear prostheses to alleviate speech reception deficits in the profoundly deaf. During the current grant period, psychophysical, speech-perception, speech-production, evoked-potential, and anatomical (CT) data have been systematically collected for 21 implanted patients, some of whom have been studied longitudinally for more than 4 years. This clinical effort and our related animal studies are beginning to identify basic factors underlying the wide variability in benefits obtained by implantees. Although the proposed research is highly interactive, it is organized into 5 projects according to methodology: (1) Studies of human perception to characterize speech reception in implanted subjects and relate it to information processing capabilities of the subjects and to speech processing schemes. (2) Studies of speech production to characterize changes that occur in the speech of implanted subjects and to understand the role of self hearing in speech. (3) Evaluation of electrically-evoked potentials to determine their utility for adjusting processors for patients who cannot provide reliable behavioral responses (e.g. infants), and as a means of estimating the number and distribution of spiral ganglion cell populations. (4) Anatomical studies using CT scans and histological techniques to investigate the morphology of temporal bone structures important for cochlear implantation and to determine electrode locations after implantation. (5) Electrophysiological experiments in cats to describe the responses of auditory nerve fibers to intracochlear electrical stimulation in order to describe how well speech information is encoded by existing speech processors with the aim of improving those processors. These projects interact with a biophysical model for electrical stimulation of myelinated auditory nerve fibers that will be coupled to an electro-anatomical model of current flow in the cochlea; they provide the data necessary for testing the models and the models provides a unifying theoretical basis to aid in the interpretation of results.