Graeme Clark Collection

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    Chronic monopolar high rate simulation of the auditory nerve: physiological and histopathological effects
    TYKOCINSKI, MICHAEL ; Linahan, Neil ; Shepherd, R. K. ; Clark, Graeme M. (Kugler Publications, 2001)
    There is clinical interest in the development of high rate speech processing strategies, since there are indications that these might enhance speech perception due to an improved representation of the rapid variations in amplitude of speech. Significant improvement in speech perception using high rate stimulation has been demonstrated in cochlear implant recipients. However, it is important that the long-term safety of high rate stimulation is clearly established prior to its general clinical application. This is especially important, since acute animal studies have shown that high rate stimulation can induce a reduction in the excitability of the auditory nerve. This was also associated with an increase in both threshold and latency of the electrically evoked auditory brainstem response (EABR). However, while a chronic stimulation study indicated that monopolar electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve at rates of 1000 pulses per second (pps)/channel (three channels) had no adverse effects on the spiral ganglion cell density (SGCO),5 there is limited data concerning higher rates. In the present study, we evaluated the electrophysiological and histopathological effects of chronic monopolar electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve using considerably higher stimulus rates than have been used in previous studies.
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    Advances in computational modelling of cochlear implant physiology and perception
    Bruce, Ian C. ; White, M. W. ; Irlicht, L. S. ; O'Leary, Stephen J. ; Clark, Graeme M. (IOS Press, 2001)
    Models of cochlear implant physiology and perception have historically utilized deterministic descriptions of auditory-nerve (AN) responses to electrical stimulation, which ignore stochastic activity present in the response. Physiological models of AN responses have been developed that do incorporate stochastic activity [8][13][14][27][38][39], but the consequences of stochastic activity for the perception of cochlear implant stimulation have not been investigated until recently [3]. Such an investigation is prompted by inaccuracies in predicting cochlear implant perception by deterministic models. For example, studies of single-fiber responses, where only an arbitrary deterministic measure of threshold is recorded, do not accurately predict perceptual threshold versus phase duration (strength-duration) curves for sinusoidal stimulation [24] or for pulsatile stimulation [25][26]. Furthermore, strength-duration curves of cochlear implant users are not well predicted by deterministic Hodgkin Huxley type models [25] [30].However, the complexity of previous stochastic physiological models has made the computation of responses for large numbers of fibers both laborious and time-consuming. Furthermore, the parameters of these models are often not easily matched to the fiber characteristics of the auditory nerve in humans or other mammals. This has prompted us to develop a simpler and more computationally efficient model of electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve [1][2][4] which is capable of direct and rapid prediction of perceptual data[3]