Programmable Interactive System for Cochlear Implant Electrode Stimulation

摘要

The aim of this research, which was performed as a Lincoln Laboratory InnovativeResearch Program (IRP) project, was to apply advanced digital speech and signal-processing techniques toward improving cochlear implant electrode simulators. By providing a flexible stimulator whose function could be tuned depending on the subject's residual auditory nerves and the efficiency of the implant's coupling to those nerves, it was hypothesized that the subject's speech reception could be improved. The approach to providing these new and improved electrode stimulators included the design of a laboratory signal processor used for interactive testing of new algorithms with implant subjects. This Programmable Interactive System for Cochlear Implant Electrode Stimulation (PISCES) was designed, built, and tested at Lincoln Laboratory and then delivered to the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI) Cochlear Implant Research Laboratory (CIRL). In collaboration with researchers at MEEI CIRL and MIT Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE), new algorithms run on PISCES have resulted in substantial improvements in subject speech reception relative to that with their current implant stimulators. These results were obtained as a result of interactive algorithm adjustment at the clinic, which demonstrated the importance of a flexible signal processor....Cochlear implant, Continuous interleaved sampling, Neural deafness, Electrode stimulator, Hearing aid, Auditory prosthesis, Speech processing, Sensory deafness.