Speech in noise performance in adults with cochlear implants using a combined channel deactivation strategy with a variable number of dynamic focused channels.

Objectives And Methods: Cochlear implant listeners show difficulties in understanding speech in noise. Channel interactions from activating overlapping neural populations reduce the signal accuracy necessary to interpret complex signals. Optimizing programming strategies based on focused detection thresholds to reduce channel interactions has led to improved performance.

Investigating the Effect of Blurring and Focusing Current in Cochlear Implant Users with the Panoramic ECAP Method.

Purpose: For some cochlear implants (CIs), it is possible to focus electrical stimulation by partially returning current from the active electrode to nearby, intra-cochlear electrodes (partial tripolar (pTP) stimulation). Another method achieves the opposite: "blurring" by stimulating multiple electrodes simultaneously. The Panoramic ECAP (PECAP) method provides a platform to investigate their effects in detail by measuring electrically evoked compound action potentials and estimating current spread and neural responsiveness along the length of the CI electrode array.

Incomplete Partition Type II Cochlear Malformations: Delineating the Three-Dimensional Structure from Digitized Human Histopathological Specimens.

Hypothesis: There are clinically relevant differences in scalae anatomy and spiral ganglion neuron (SGN) quantity between incomplete partition type II (IP-II) and normal cochleae.

Background: IP-II is a commonly implanted cochlear malformation. Detailed knowledge of intracochlear three-dimensional (3D) morphology may assist with cochlear implant (CI) electrode selection/design and enable optimization of audiologic programming based on SGN maps.

Comparing Fixed and Individualized Channel Interaction Coefficients for Speech Perception With Dynamic Focusing Cochlear Implant Strategies.

Dynamic focusing cochlear implant strategies aim to emulate normal cochlear excitation patterns by varying the degree of current focusing as a function of input level. Results on the speech perception benefits of these strategies have been mixed. In previous studies, channel interaction coefficients (), which mediate the relationship between current level and degree of focusing, were fixed across channels and participants.