Deep electrode insertion and sound coding in cochlear implants.

This article discusses the potential benefits of deep insertion which are obtained using pitch-locked temporal stimulation patterns. Besides the access to low frequency information, further advantages of deeply inserted long electrodes are the possibility to better approximate the correct tonotopic location of contacts, the coverage of a wider range of cochlear locations, and the somewhat reduced channel interaction due to the wider contact separation for a given number of channels. A newly developed set of strategies has been shown to improve speech understanding in noise and to enhance sound quality by providing a more "natural" impression, which especially becomes obvious when listening to music. The benefits of deep insertion should not, however, be compromised by structural damage during insertion. The small cross section and the high flexibility of the new electrodes can help to ensure less traumatic insertions as demonstrated by patients' hearing preservation rate. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled <Lasker Award>.
PMID: 25456089 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Hearing Research - October 22, 2014 Category: Audiology Authors: Hochmair I, Hochmair E, Nopp P, Waller M, Jolly C Tags: Hear Res Source Type: research