en
Scientific article
Open access
English

Speech perception with novel stimulation strategies for combined cochleo-vestibular systems

Publication date2021
Abstract

Cochlear implants are very well established in the rehabilitation of hearing loss and are regarded as the most successful neuroprostheses to date. While a lot of progress has also been made in the neighboring field of specific vestibular implants, some diseases affect the entire inner ear, leading to both hearing and vestibular hypo-or dysfunction. The proximity of the cochlear and vestibular organs suggests a single combined implant as a means to alleviate the associated impairments. While both organs can be stimulated in a similar way with electric pulses applied through implanted electrodes, the typical phase durations needed in the vestibular system seem to be substantially larger than those typically needed in the cochlear system. Therefore, when using sequential stimulation in a combined implant, the pulse stream to the cochlea is interrupted by comparatively large gaps in which vestibular stimulation can occur. We investigate the impact of these gaps in the auditory stream on speech perception. Specifically, we compare a number of stimulation strategies with different gap lengths and distributions and evaluate whether it is feasible to use them without having a noticeable decline in perception and quality of speech. This is a prerequisite for any practicable stimulation strategy of a combined system and can be investigated even in recipients of a normal cochlear implant. Our results show that there is no significant deterioration in speech perception for the different strategies examined in this paper, leaving the strategies as viable candidates for prospective combined cochleo-vestibular implants.

Keywords
  • Electrodes
  • Implants
  • Auditory system
  • Testing
  • Fitting
  • Ear
  • Software
Citation (ISO format)
LANTHALER, David et al. Speech perception with novel stimulation strategies for combined cochleo-vestibular systems. In: IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 2021, vol. 29, p. 1644–1650. doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2021.3105271
Main files (2)
Article (Accepted version)
Article (Published version)
Identifiers
ISSN of the journal1534-4320
123views
52downloads

Technical informations

Creation24.08.2021 16:49:00
First validation24.08.2021 16:49:00
Update time16.03.2023 01:29:34
Status update16.03.2023 01:29:32
Last indexation12.02.2024 13:31:07
All rights reserved by Archive ouverte UNIGE and the University of GenevaunigeBlack