A Cochlear-Implant Processor for Encoding Music and Lowering Stimulation Power

Author

Sit, Ji-Jon ; Sarpeshkar, Rahul

Author_Institution

Adv. Bionics, Sylmar

Volume

7

Issue

1

fYear

2008

Firstpage

40

Lastpage

48

Abstract

Cochlear implants (CIs), or bionic ears, restore hearing in profoundly deaf (greater than -90 dB hearing loss) patients. They function by transforming frequency patterns in sound into corresponding spatial electrode-stimulation patterns for the auditory nerve. Over the past 20 years, improvements in sound-processing strategies, in the number of electrodes and channels, and in the rate of stimulation have yielded improved sentence and word recognition scores in patients. Next- generation implants will be fully implanted inside the patient´s body. Consequently, power consumption requirements for signal processing will be very stringent.

Keywords

audio signal processing; ear; patient treatment; prosthetics; bionic ears; cochlear-implant processor; deaf patients; frequency patterns; music encoding; signal processing; Auditory system; Biomedical signal processing; Cochlear implants; Computational Intelligence Society; Deafness; Ear; Electrodes; Encoding; Energy consumption; Frequency; analog processor; asynchronous; cochlear implant; electrode stimulation; fine-timing information; low power; music processor; neural stimulation; phase information;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Pervasive Computing, IEEE

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

1536-1268

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/MPRV.2008.3

Filename

4431855