Cochlear Implant Electrode Selection with Reservation Periods
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current cochlear implant systems face challenges in spectral resolution and cross-electrode interference due to the limited number of electrodes and broad current fields, leading to poorer spectral resolution and significant overlap in neural excitation, where high-rate channels may be inadvertently selected over low-rate channels, coding unimportant information more frequently.
Innovation Solution
A cochlear implant system with an electrode selection scheme that assigns importance values to electrodes based on parameters like pulse energy, signal-to-noise ratio, and coherence, reserves high-importance electrodes to prevent interference, and adjusts the reservation period based on frequency content, ensuring that only important information is prioritized and transmitted.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If N-of-M electrode selection is applied to variable-rate coding strategies, then high-rate channels receive selection advantage, but unimportant information is coded more frequently with noise interference
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by setting reservation periods for selected electrodes in advance. When an electrode is selected for stimulation, it is reserved for a predetermined period during which it cannot be re-selected. This preliminary reservation prevents high-rate channels from being repeatedly selected consecutively, ensuring that selection is based on actual importance rather than just event rate, thus improving the accuracy of information importance coding.
2Quantity of substance
If electrodes produce broad current fields, then more nerve fibres are stimulated, but spectral resolution deteriorates and cross-electrode interference increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies segmentation by dividing the stimulation into discrete time windows and selecting only N electrodes out of M available electrodes for stimulation at any given time. This temporal and spatial segmentation ensures that only a subset of electrodes are active simultaneously, reducing the overlap of broad current fields and minimizing cross-electrode interference, thereby improving spectral resolution while still stimulating sufficient nerve fibres.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If N electrodes are selected in each time window, then cross-electrode interference is reduced, but high-rate channels are over-selected compared to low-rate channels
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by setting reservation periods for selected electrodes in advance. When an electrode is selected for stimulation, it is reserved for a predetermined period during which it cannot be re-selected. This preliminary reservation prevents high-rate channels from being repeatedly selected consecutively, ensuring that selection is based on actual importance rather than just event rate, thus improving the accuracy of information importance coding.
Solution Approach 2:
The system applies periodic action by implementing fixed reservation periods for selected electrodes. This periodic unavailability of selected electrodes creates a rhythm that prevents continuous selection of the same high-rate channels, allowing low-rate channels with important information to be selected in subsequent time windows. This periodic mechanism ensures fairer representation of different channel types while maintaining reduced cross-electrode interference.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention relates to a cochlear implant system comprising a microphone unit configured to receive an acoustical signal and transmit an audio signal based on the acoustical signal, a processor unit configured to receive the audio signal and process the audio signal into a plurality of electrode pulses, an electrode array including a plurality of electrodes configured to stimulate auditory nerves of a user of the cochlear implant system based on the plurality of electrode pulses, and wherein the processor unit is configured to assign an importance value to one or more electrodes of the plurality of electrodes, wherein each of the importance values is determined based on a status of an electrode pulse assigned to the respective electrode, select a main set of electrodes of the plurality of electrodes during a time window, where the importance value of each of the selected electrodes of the main set of electrodes is larger or equal to an importance threshold value, activate the electrodes of the main set of electrodes to stimulate auditory nerves based on the electrode pulses of the plurality of electrode pulses, and reserve the electrodes of the main set of electrodes into a reserved mode during a reservation period.