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Russell Sharpe - M.S. Thesis Presentation

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Advisor:  Pamela Bhatti, Ph.D.  (School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology)
Committee Members:
Thomas Burkholder, Ph.D., School of Applied Physiology , Georgia Institute of Technology
Robert Butera, Ph.D., School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology


Hearing loss is a physical disability that affects over 37 million adults in the United States alone, making it the most prevalent of any major disability. Of these individuals, approximately 71,000 have received cochlear implants due to the severity of their hearing loss. Candidacy for becoming a cochlear implant recipient requires an individual to have profound hearing loss approaching deafness such that there is no benefit from a traditional hearing aid. At this point the natural signal transduction pathway of converting mechanical vibrations of acoustic events into neural impulses is almost completely non-functional. However, the auditory nerves of the cochlea often remain intact and highly functional, allowing for a cochlear implant to be surgically inserted to directly stimulate these nerves and restore of some degree of hearing ability.

It has been hypothesized that increasing the number of active sites on a cochlear implant electrode array will enable the recipient to distinguish a higher number of pitch precepts, thus creating a more natural sound. While DSP processing strategies for cochlear implants have evolved significantly to address this, technology for the actual electrode array has remained relatively constant and limits the number of physical electrodes possible. Previous work introduced the concept of using Thin-Film Array (TFA) technology to allow for much higher site densities, although the original devices proved unreliable during surgical insertion tests. This work presents a new method of combining polyimide-based TFA’s with supporting silicone insertion platforms to create assembled electrode arrays that are a more viable option for surgical insertion. The electrical and mechanical properties of these assemblies are investigated with physical deformation tests and finite element analysis in COMSOL to quantify how they will perform upon insertion into the cochlea, and the preliminary results of a surgical insertion study into human cadaveric temporal bones will be discussed.

 

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  • Workflow Status:Published
  • Created By:Chris Ruffin
  • Created:03/05/2012
  • Modified By:Fletcher Moore
  • Modified:10/07/2016

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