A study of the application of the Hodgkin-Huxley and the Frankenhaeuser-Huxley model for electrostimulation of the acoustic nerve.

By means of electrostimulation of the acoustic nerve profoundly deaf patients can, in the best cases, reach almost complete speech understanding without lip reading. In this paper the information content of the signals supplied to patients is examined by a study of action potential generation by means of the Hodgkin-Huxley and the Frankenhaeuser-Huxley equations solved by means of a digitally controlled analogue computer. The response to sinusoidal signals and to signals with the wave shape of certain vowels is investigated and compared with results from animal experiments and observation on patients.