Intelligent Parallel Stimulation (IPS™)
In natural hearing, incoming sounds stimulate many areas of the cochlea at the same time. This type of stimulation is known as simultaneous or parallel stimulation. Until now, cochlear implants have not been able to effectively use parallel stimulation due to the occurrence of channel interaction.
What is channel interaction?
When the cochlea is stimulated through individual contacts on the inserted electrode arrays, many electrical fields are created simultaneously. When these fields overlap, the sound signal is distorted, or “blurred”, and sound clarity is lost. This overlapping of sound signals is referred to as channel interaction.
In order to provide parallel stimulation without the disadvantages of channel interaction, MED-EL’s Intelligent Parallel Stimulation* uses sophisticated techniques, including Channel Interaction Compensation, Sign-Correlated Stimulation, and Triphasic Pulses, to control overlaps in electrical fields automatically. Research indicates that this may provide a clearer sound signal, particularly beneficial in difficult listening situations, e.g. noisy environments, and when listening to music.
Sign-Correlated Stimulation (SCS)
In order to mimic the natural hearing process using parallel stimulation, each electrical pulse has to begin and end at the precisely same time. Until now, this precisely timed stimulation has not been possible, and the resulting mismatch in timing has caused "current tearing". MED-EL's Sign-Correlated Stimulation is designed to time-lock the onset (start) of each electrical pulse to occur at exactly the same time on multiple channels.
Triphasic Pulses
Cochlear implant systems have traditionally provided electrical stimulation using biphasic electrical pulses, resulting in a very small residual electrical field in the cochlea following each pulse. As these residual fields can contribute to channel interaction, the PULSARCI100 and the SONATATI100 cochlear implants support triphasic pulses to reduce these residual electrical fields and minimise channel interaction.
* Feature will be enabled in an upcoming software release
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