Research and simulation of membrane potential integrate-and-fire strategy cochlear implants

Abstract

Hearing loss (HL) is now disturbing the life of more than 1.5 billion people worldwide. Cochlear Implant (CI) System is at present the only practical method to endow a person who is suffering from hearing loss with sound cognition. In this article the audio coding function, which is the crucial part of Cochlear implant, is estimated and improved based on membrane potential integrate-and-fire (MPIF) strategy. MPIF strategy is applied for the conversion of sound signals to electronic signals. It resembles the accumulation and releasement of membrane potential and considers the influence of audio intensity on the generation time of action potential and the time feature of not only hair cells but also auditory nerve synapses. Hence stimulation signals is generated variably according to the intensity and the volume of the sound received, which is more resemble to healthy auditory system. Cochlear implants with MPIF strategy provides its users more realistic sense of sound than other cochlear implants at present.