A signal processing method and system for an electric auditory prosthesis

Abstract

The invention provides an electrical auditory prosthesis signal processing method, and belongs to the field of medical instruments. The method comprises the following steps: firstly utilizing a band-pass filter group to carry out filtering on a collected sound signal; extracting a slow-varying signal u<k>(t) after signals x<k>(t) output by all band-pass filters are subjected to the downward frequency shift to a low-frequency range, wherein in the downward frequency shift processing procedure, the movable frequency of the x<k>(t) is equal to lower cut-off frequency fcl<k> of a kth band-pass filter minus the lowest frequency fl<k> of a kth electrode channel within a time-domain pitch processing range; finally, processing the extracted slow-varying signal u<k>(t), and modulating the processed slow-varying signal on a carrier wave to be transmitted out. According the method, frequency allocation of the band-pass filters is realized through the time-domain processing capability in a single electrode channel of an implant user, the slow-varying signal is extracted according to the time-domain processing capability of the single electrode channel, and the extracted slow-varying signal can be transmitted to auditory nerves near to corresponding electrodes, so that the overall sound perception of the implant user can be improved.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention belongs to the field of medical equipment, and in particular relates to a signal processing method and system of an electric auditory prosthesis. Background technique [0002] Some people's auditory nerve pathways are interrupted due to various reasons such as lesions and genetics. Implantation of electrical auditory prostheses can help them restore part of their hearing, such as cochlear implants (Cochlear Implants, CI), auditory brainstem implants (Auditory Brainstem Implants, ABI) and so on. Modern electroacoustic prosthetic devices typically consist of an electrode array consisting of multiple electrode contacts. The currently clinically used electroauditory prosthesis signal processing method is continuous interval sampling (Continuous Interleaved Sampling, CIS). The CIS processing flow in the modern CI processor is as follows: first, a band-pass filter bank is used to band-pass filter the time-domain signal collected by the microp...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

The HSSE strategy has a certain effect on the pitch perception of sounds with harmonic components, but pitch perception is only a part of sound perception. Explicitly extracting and utilizing harmonic and fundamental frequency components may improve pitch perception. Also negatively affects sound perception in other areas

[0004] In addition, there are obvious technical defects in this technology: 1. In SSE, the information close to the carrier frequency is moved to a very low frequency area, such as 0-50Hz

According to psychophysical experience, such information on a single electrode channel is too fast to be resolved by the implanter

3. In order to overcome the second shortcoming, HSSE artificially performs 50-300Hz band-pass filtering on the demodulated signal, but this leads to another problem-discarding part of the frequency components

[0005] In summary, the main defect of the CIS, SSE, and HSSE strategies is that the continuous frequency information is not expressed in the electrical pulse signal in a form that the implanter can feel

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