No effect of prolonged pulsed high frequency ultrasound imaging of the basilar membrane on cochlear function or hair cell survival found in an initial study.

Miniature high frequency ultrasound devices show promise as tools for clinical middle ear and basal cochlea imaging and vibrometry. However, before clinical use it is important to verify that the ultrasound exposure does not damage the cochlea. In this initial study, electrophysiological responses of the cochlea were measured for a range of stimulus frequencies in both ears of anesthetized chinchillas, before and after exposing the organ of Corti region of one ear to pulsed focused ultrasound for 30 min.

In vivo measurement of basilar membrane vibration in the unopened chinchilla cochlea using high frequency ultrasound.

The basilar membrane and organ of Corti in the cochlea are essential for sound detection and frequency discrimination in normal hearing. There are currently no methods used for real-time high resolution clinical imaging or vibrometry of these structures. The ability to perform such imaging could aid in the diagnosis of some pathologies and advance understanding of the causes.

Compensating for Tissue Changes in an Ultrasonic Power Link for Implanted Medical Devices.

Ultrasonic power transfer using piezoelectric devices is a promising wireless power transfer technology for biomedical implants. However, for sub-dermal implants where the separation between the transmitter and receiver is on the order of several acoustic wavelengths, the ultrasonic power transfer efficiency (PTE) is highly sensitive to the distance between the transmitter and receiver. This sensitivity can cause large swings in efficiency and presents a serious limitation on battery life and overall performance.

Real-time imaging of in-vitro human middle ear using high frequency ultrasound.

Imaging techniques currently used in the clinic to inspect ears in patients are generally limited to views terminating at the tympanic membrane (TM) surface. For imaging past the TM, methods such as computed tomography are typically used, but in addition to disadvantages such as being costly, time consuming, and causing radiation exposure, these often do not provide sufficient resolution of the middle ear structures of interest. This study presents an investigation into the capability of high frequency ultrasound to image the middle ear with high resolution in real-time, as well as measure vibrations of TM and middle ear structures in response to sound stimuli.

Fabrication and performance of a single-crystal lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate cylindrical hydrophone.

The development of a piezoelectric hydrophone based on lead magnesium niobate-lead titanate [PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3-PbTiO3 (PMN-PT)] single-crystal piezoelectric as the hydrophone substrate is reported. Although PMN-PT can possess much higher piezoelectric sensitivity than traditional lead zirconate titanate (PZT) piezoelectrics, it is highly anisotropic and therefore there is a large gain in sensitivity only when the crystal structure is oriented in a specific direction. Because of this, simply replacing the PZT substrate with a PMN-PT cylinder is not an optimal solution because the crystal orientation does not uniformly align with the circumferential axis of the hydrophone.

Direct measurement of the wavelength of sound waves in the human skull.

The results of a study of the three-dimensional vibration of two dry human skulls in response to harmonic excitation are presented. The vibratory response exhibits three distinct types of motion across the range of audible frequencies. At low frequencies below 1000 Hz, whole-head quasi-rigid motion is seen.

Audiometric thresholds measured with single and dual BAHA transducers: The effect of phase inversion.

The bone-anchored-hearing-aid (BAHA) transduces airborne sound into skull vibration. Current bilateral BAHA configurations, for sounds directly facing listeners, will apply forces that are in-phase with each other and directed roughly towards the center of the head. Below approximately 1000 Hz the two cochleae respond in approximately the same direction and with approximately the same phase to each BAHA, thus it may be preferable to drive bilateral BAHAs such that when one pushes, the other pulls.

High-frequency ex vivo ultrasound imaging of the auditory system.

A 50MHz array-based imaging system was used to obtain high-resolution images of the ear and auditory system. This previously described custom built imaging system (Brown et al. 2004a, 2004b; Brown and Lockwood 2005) is capable of 50 microm axial resolution, and lateral resolution varying from 80 microm to 130 microm over a 5.