Can a passive mechanical traveling wave be generated in superior canal dehiscence syndrome, cochlear implant, otosclerosis or atresia of windows?

Jean Yves Sichel, Ronen Perez, Cahtia Adelman, Haim Sohmer*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Air conducted and bone conducted auditory stimulation both activate the inner ear by a similar mechanism since responses to air conducted stimulation can be cancelled by a bone conducted stimulus with appropriate phase and intensity. This has been taken as evidence that both air conducted and bone conducted auditory stimulations induce equal but opposite phase displacements of the two windows, the oval and round windows. These give rise to pressure differences across the basilar membrane, which initiate a passive traveling wave propagating from the base to the apex, as suggested by the studies of von Bekesy. However, in certain clinical conditions, this does not seem likely. For example, in superior semicircular canal dehiscence, the dehiscence is a third window, but nevertheless, the air conduction loss is small, while bone conducted thresholds are often better than normal. In cochlear implantation, residual low frequency acoustic hearing at the apex of the cochlea is preserved even though the implantation procedure often causes damage to the basilar membrane. In treating otosclerosis by stapes surgery (stapedectomy or stapedotomy), bone conducted thresholds prior to the surgical treatment (when there is only one mobile window) and following the surgery (two mobile windows) are similar in most cases. In addition, rare cases of congenital atresia of the round window have been reported, and in such patients, bone conduction thresholds were close to normal. These findings in the patients support the suggestion that the outer hair cells can be excited during both air conduction and bone conduction stimulation directly by intra-cochlear fluid pressures, without the mediation of a passive basilar membrane traveling wave. Copyright 2005

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)246-252
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of International Advanced Otology
Volume5
Issue number2
StatePublished - 2009

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