Phase 2- A collaboration between the University of Ottawa and Vivosonic towards the use of the Integrity V500 in the quantitative evaluation of tinnitus

耳鸣是一种改变生活的疾病，影响了36万加拿大人，给加拿大经济带来了数亿美元的经济负担。虽然主观工具目前用于诊断**状况，但没有可靠的临床客观措施存在。Engage Plus的目的是与我们的合作伙伴Vivosonic Inc.一起开发将耳鸣与正常听力人群区分开来所需的硬件、算法和测试协议。我们的成功将带来一种创新的临床测量工具。**我们的研究团队开发了一种创新的噪音间隙技术，理论上可以应用于**人的耳鸣检测。Vivosonic公司生产的Integrity(TM) V500系统可以记录从听神经到脑干的电反应，被称为听觉脑干反应（ABR）。他们的技术在市场上是独一无二的，因为它使用专利算法、预滤波器、现场放大和数字传输，这些技术一起最大限度地降低了录音中捕获的噪音水平。在我们的第一阶段Engage**中，我们创建了一个原型和时间处理测试，并在正常人群中进行了试点。我们证实，他们的平台非常适合应用我们的噪声间隙方案，并在噪声（临床相关）条件下捕获小的ABR变化。这两个因素对于开发临床可行的**测量系统至关重要。**在这个Engage Plus中，我们的目标是对耳鸣人群分类所需的硬件，时间分析和收集**协议进行修改。在实验过程中，我们将使用具有改变持续时间的小静默间隔的噪声刺激来测量听神经的反应，并改变刺激频率和间隙宽度的范围。改进后的系统将提取我们的新ABR指标，这些指标将使用Vivosonic专有的信号调理和基于机器学习的分类方法进行处理。

Tinnitus is a life-altering condition that affects 360,000 Canadians and represents an economic burden of**hundreds of millions to the Canadian economy. While subjective tools are currently used to diagnose the**condition, no reliable clinical objective measure exists. The purpose of this Engage Plus is to develop the**hardware, algorithms and testing protocol required to discriminate tinnitus from the normal hearing population**with our partner, Vivosonic Inc. Our success will lead to an innovative clinical measurement tool.**Our research team has developed an innovative gap-in-noise technique that could theoretically be applied to**humans for tinnitus detection. Vivosonic Inc manufacturers the Integrity(TM) V500 system which records**electrical responses from the auditory nerve to the brainstem, known as the auditory brainstem response (ABR).**Their technology is unique on the market as it uses a patented algorithm, pre-filter, onsite amplification, and a**digital transmission that, together, minimize the level of noise captured in the recording. In our Phase-1 Engage**we created a prototype and temporal processing test that was piloted on a normal population. We confirmed**that their platform is ideal for application of our gap-in-noise protocol and capturing small ABR changes under**noisy (clinically relevant) conditions. These two factors are critical for developing a clinically viable**measurement system.**In this Engage Plus our goal is to introduce modifications to the hardware, temporal analysis and collection**protocol required to classify the tinnitus population. We will use a noise stimulus with small silent intervals of**altering durations to measure the response of the auditory nerve, modifying stimulus frequency and gap width**ranges during the protocol. The modified system will extract our novel ABR measures, these will be treated**with Vivosonic's proprietary signal conditioning and machine learning based classification approach to...