Development of Electrical Stimulator for Auditory Stimulation

청각 자극용 전기자극기 개발

This paper introduces a development of an electrical stimulator for auditory stimulation. The electrical stimulator is useful in neurotological diagnosis, audiological evaluation, candidate selection for cochlear implantation, optimal device selection and decision making of MAP strategy for severe-to-profound hearing impaired persons. The development was based on sound parameters of auditory brainstem responses and auditory electrophysiological characteristic such as effective firing of auditory nerve and recording evoked potentials during refractory period of neuron. Besides pulse parameter could adjustable by programming for more varied electrical stimulation evoked response audiometry. Using the electrical stimulator, electrical square pulse was applied to promontory, and electrically evoked auditory brainstem response and electrically middle latency response were successfully recorded in cats.