School of Mechatronic Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China.
School of Mechatronic Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, 221116, China.
Comput Biol Med. 2020 Sep;124:103918. doi: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2020.103918. Epub 2020 Jul 22.
Electromagnetic middle ear implants (MEIs), which use the mechanical vibration of their implanted transducers to treat hearing loss, have emerged to overcome the limitations of conventional hearing aids. Several reports have indicated that the electromagnetic MEI's performance changed with different stimulation sites of the transducer. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of the transducers' stimulation sites on the electromagnetic MEIs' performance. To aid this investigation, a human ear finite-element model was developed from micro-CT images of an adult's right ear. The validity of the model was confirmed by comparing the model-derived results with experimental data. Then, stimulation forces, which simulate ideal electromagnetic transducers, were respectively applied at five typical coupling sites: the umbo, incus body, incus long process, the round window, and the stapes. The stimulation sites' influence on the electromagnetic MEI's performance was studied by analyzing their corresponding basilar membrane displacements. The results show that stimulation of the round window with a force produces more cochlear stimulation than equal force stimulation of the umbo, incus body, incus long process and the stapes, though the superiority of the round window depends on its smaller area compared to the stapes footplate. Among the forward stimulation, the stapes is the optimal stimulation site for the electromagnetic transducer regarding its hearing compensation's efficiency. The performance of the umbo stimulation is comparable to that of the incus-long-process stimulation. Driving the incus body is less efficient than stimulating the other forward driving sites. Additional, using the stapes response to evaluate the forward stimulation gives results similar to those deduced by the basilar membrane response; in contrast, for the round-window stimulation, the evaluation result based on the stapes response is prominently less than the one calculated by the basilar membrane response, especially in the mid-high frequency range.
电磁中耳植入物（MEI）使用其植入式换能器的机械振动来治疗听力损失，已被证明可以克服传统助听器的局限性。有几项报告表明，电磁 MEI 的性能会随换能器刺激部位的不同而发生变化。本研究旨在分析换能器刺激部位对电磁 MEI 性能的影响。为了辅助这项研究，从一名成人右耳的微 CT 图像中开发了一个人类耳朵的有限元模型。通过将模型导出的结果与实验数据进行比较，验证了模型的有效性。然后，分别在五个典型的耦合部位（鼓膜、砧骨体、砧骨长突、圆窗和镫骨）施加模拟理想电磁换能器的刺激力。通过分析相应的基底膜位移来研究刺激部位对电磁 MEI 性能的影响。结果表明，与同等力刺激鼓膜相比，刺激圆窗产生的耳蜗刺激更大，尽管圆窗的优势取决于其与镫骨足板相比面积更小。在向前刺激中，对于电磁换能器，镫骨是最佳的刺激部位，因为其听力补偿效率更高。鼓膜刺激的性能可与砧骨长突刺激相媲美。驱动砧骨体的效率不如其他向前驱动部位。此外，使用镫骨反应来评估向前刺激的结果与基底膜反应推断的结果相似；相比之下，对于圆窗刺激，基于镫骨反应的评估结果明显小于基于基底膜反应的评估结果，尤其是在中高频范围内。
