US 12,403,310 B2
Medial olivocochlear reflex sound coding with bandwidth normalization
Enrique Alejandro López-Poveda, Salamanca (ES)
Assigned to Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca (ES)
Filed by Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca (ES)
Filed on Dec. 20, 2022, as Appl. No. 18/068,822.
Application 18/068,822 is a continuation of application No. 16/619,162, granted, now 11,529,516, issued on Dec. 20, 2022, previously published as PCT/US2018/039896, filed on Jun. 28, 2018.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/525,902, filed on Jun. 28, 2017.
Prior Publication US 2023/0271008 A1, Aug. 31, 2023
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. A61N 1/36 (2006.01); A61N 1/02 (2006.01); A61N 1/05 (2006.01)
CPC A61N 1/36038 (2017.08) [A61N 1/025 (2013.01); A61N 1/0541 (2013.01); A61N 1/36167 (2013.01); A61N 1/36039 (2017.08)] 6 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A signal processing system in a bilateral hearing implant system having left side and right side hearing implants configured to communicate signals to each other, the system for each hearing implant comprising:
at least one sensing microphone configured for sensing a sound environment and developing a corresponding microphone signal output from sensed sound;
a filter bank configured for processing the microphone signal and generating a plurality of band pass signals,
wherein each of the plurality of band pass signals has an associated amplitude, an associated band of audio frequencies, an associated bandwidth, and an associated instantaneous output energy, and
wherein each of the plurality of band pass signals of a given filter bank has a corresponding contralateral band pass signal, with data associated with the corresponding contralateral band pass signals received from the other hearing implant, such data being used to provide a channel-specific dynamic inhibition adjustment;
means for determining for each of the plurality of band pass signals a normalized instantaneous output energy, normalized based on a channel bandwidth of the corresponding contralateral bandpass signal and on a channel bandwidth of a selected reference contralateral band pass signal;
a channel compression module configured to receive and process each of the plurality of band pass signals for the given hearing implant, and each of the normalized instantaneous output energies from the plurality of contralateral band pass signals to provide the channel-specific dynamic inhibition adjustment for each of the plurality of band pass signals, in which the associated amplitude of each of the plurality of band pass signals is adjusted based, at least in part, on the normalized instantaneous output energy of the corresponding contralateral bandpass signal;
a pulse timing and coding module configured for processing the inhibition-adjusted band pass signals and developing stimulation timing signals; and
a pulse generation module configured for processing the stimulation timing signals and developing electrode stimulation signals for the hearing implant for perception as sound.