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Optical Stimulation of the Auditory Nerve

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Auditory Prostheses

Part of the book series: Springer Handbook of Auditory Research ((SHAR,volume 39))

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Abstract

Improvements in cochlear implant devices during the last decade have mainly been achieved through novel coding strategies rather than through improvement of the neural interface. The neural interface, however, is a bottleneck for transferring information from the cochlear implant to the auditory nerve. Electric current spreads in the tissue and neighboring electrode contacts cannot be considered independent stimulation sources. Simultaneous transfer of information at adjacent electrodes may lead to deleterious interactions. Therefore, contemporary coding strategies use sequential stimulation paradigms that avoid simultaneous stimulation at neighboring electrode contacts. These coding strategies provide good speech recognition in quiet listening environments but fail in noisy backgrounds. It has been argued that an increase in the number of independent channels that transfer information to the auditory nerve could improve patient performance in noisy listening environments. Therefore, an important objective in implant electrode design is to maximize the spatial selectivity of stimulation.

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Acknowledgements

This project has been funded with federal funds from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under Contract No. HHSN260-2006-00006-C/NIH No. N01-DC-6-0006, NIH grant 1R41DC008515-01, NIH grant 1R41DC008515-02, NIH grant F31 DC008246-01, E.R. Capita Foundation.

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  1. Department of Otolaryngology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, 303 E. Chicago Avenue, Searle 12-561, Chicago, IL, 60611, USA

    Claus-Peter Richter

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  1. Claus-Peter Richter
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  2. Agnella Izzo Matic
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Correspondence to Claus-Peter Richter .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Otolaryngology - Head &, Neck Surgery, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, 92697, California, USA

    Fan-Gang Zeng

  2. , Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742-4415, Maryland, USA

    Arthur N. Popper

  3. Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, 02543, Massachusetts, USA

    Richard R. Fay

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Richter, CP., Matic, A.I. (2011). Optical Stimulation of the Auditory Nerve. In: Zeng, FG., Popper, A., Fay, R. (eds) Auditory Prostheses. Springer Handbook of Auditory Research, vol 39. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9434-9_6

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