Smith Zachary M, Parkinson Wendy S, Long Christopher J
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2013;2013:2796-9. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2013.6610121.
Cochlear implants are highly successful neural prostheses that restore hearing in the deaf, often resulting in high levels of speech understanding in quiet listening conditions. In more challenging conditions, however, cochlear implant subjects often score much lower than their normal-hearing peers, possibly reflecting limits of the electrode-neural interface. In this study, we compare monopolar stimulation versus focused stimulation, using multipolar channels, to test if current focusing can increase spectral resolution. Psychophysical results show that current focusing significantly improves subjects' ability to discriminate spectral features and detect dynamic modulations in sound stimuli. These results suggest that focused stimulation can successfully increase the number of effective channels with a cochlear implant and may lead to improved hearing in noisy conditions.
人工耳蜗是非常成功的神经假体，可恢复聋人的听力，在安静聆听条件下通常能实现高水平的言语理解。然而，在更具挑战性的条件下，人工耳蜗使用者的得分往往比听力正常的同龄人低得多，这可能反映了电极 - 神经接口的局限性。在本研究中，我们使用多极通道比较单极刺激与聚焦刺激，以测试电流聚焦是否能提高频谱分辨率。心理物理学结果表明，电流聚焦显著提高了受试者辨别频谱特征和检测声音刺激中动态调制的能力。这些结果表明，聚焦刺激可以成功增加人工耳蜗有效通道的数量，并可能改善在嘈杂环境中的听力。
