Current focusing sharpens local peaks of excitation in cochlear implant stimulation

Cochlear implant (CI) users’ spectral resolution is limited by the number of implanted electrodes, interactions between the electrodes, and the underlying neural population. Current steering has been proposed to increase the number of spectral channels beyond the number of physical electrodes, however, electric field interactions may limit CI users’ access to current-steered virtual channels (VCs). Current focusing (e.g tripolar stimulation) has been proposed to reduce current spread and thereby reduce interactions. In this study, current steering and current focusing were combined in a four-electrode stimulation pattern, i.e quadrupolar virtual channels (QPVCs). The spread of excitation was measured and compared between QPVC and Monopolar VC (MPVC) stimuli using a forward masking task. Results showed a sharper peak in the excitation pattern and reduced spread of masking for QPVC stimuli. Results from the forward masking study were compared with a previous study measuring VC discrimination ability and showed a weak relationship between spread of excitation and VC discriminability. The results suggest that CI signal processing strategies that utilize both current steering and current focusing might increase CI users’ functional spectral resolution by transmitting more channels and reducing channel interactions.

Research highlights
► Current focusing reduces current spread of virtual channels.
► Current spread is reduced at equal loudness at a comfortable level.
► Forward masking curves have some relationship to virtual channel discrimination.