How does the cochlea work – our cochlear workflow

How does the cochlea work?–Our cochlear workflow

Cochlear implants generally include implants in the body, hearing science, and in vitro speech processors, three parts of the head piece. The implant includes a microprocessor and an electrode that is surgically implanted into the patient’s ear to provide electrical stimulation to the auditory nerve. The speech processor belongs to the external part, the hearing device and the correction, the body type and the ear-back machine. The main purpose is to process the sound collected by the microphone according to a certain coding strategy and convert it into an electrical pulse signal. The cutting-edge technology is for each patient. Use different strategies to debug the appropriate parameters for the patient to hear the best sound. The headpiece uses a coil to pass the processor’s signal into the implant.

Sound processor

1. The microphone in the headpiece captures the sound of the outside environment

2. Pass the sound into the processor

3. The processor converts the sound into a digital signal according to a certain encoding strategy

4. Sending a signal to the implant through the transmit coil in the headpiece

5. The head piece and the implant are attracted by the magnet

6. Implant

7. The microprocessor converts the received digital information into an electrical stimulation current signal

8. The stimulation current is transmitted to the electrodes implanted in the inner ear, and the electrodes at different positions correspond to different sound spectra.

9. The electrode transmits a stimulating current to the auditory nerve endings located in the cochlea

The auditory nerve communicates the signal to the brain, producing hearing

An important component of the cochlear implant is the sound processing strategy. It determines how the sound is processed in the processor and how it is passed to the electrodes of the implant, and how much of the original sound information is retained or lost during processing.

Although the sound processing strategy is invisible, it plays a decisive role in the effect of the cochlear implant user.