Can a Cochlear Implant Be Used as an Electrical Impedance Tomography Device?

Publisher: Wiley Country of Publication: England NLM ID: 101530293 Publication Model: Print Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 2040-7947 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 20407939 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Int J Numer Method Biomed Eng Subsets: MEDLINE

Original Publication: [Oxford, UK] : Wiley

Tomography*/methods ; Tomography*/instrumentation ; Cochlear Implants* ; Electric Impedance*; Cochlea/diagnostic imaging ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted/methods ; Humans

The imaging of the live cochlea is a challenging task. Regardless of the quality of images obtained from modern clinical imaging techniques, the internal structures of the cochlea mainly remain obscured. Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) is a safe, low-cost alternative medical imaging technique with applications in various clinical scenarios. In this article, EIT is investigated as an alternative method to image and extract the centre of gravity of the modiolus in vivo. This information can be used to augment present postoperative medical imaging techniques to investigate the cochlea. The cochlear implant EIT system was simulated by modelling user-specific electrode array trajectories within a simple conductive medium containing an inhomogeneity representing the modiolus. The method included an adapted adjacent stimulation protocol for data collection. For the image reconstruction, NOSER and Tikhonov priors were considered. A parameter analysis was conducted to find the most robust combination of image priors and hyperparameters for this application. The cochlear implant EIT methodology was validated at different noise levels for four electrode array trajectories. Comparing the NOSER and Tikhonov priors, it was observed that the NOSER prior exhibits superior centre of gravity localisation performance in cochlear implant EIT image reconstruction for different noise levels and user-dependent variability in electrode array trajectories. Image reconstruction, using a NOSER prior at a hyperparameter value of approximately 0.001, resulted in an average centre of gravity localisation error of less than 4% for all electrode array trajectories using difference imaging and less than 5.5% using absolute imaging.
(© 2025 The Author(s). International Journal for Numerical Methods in Biomedical Engineering published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

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141954 National Research Foundation of South Africa

Keywords: cochlear implant; electrical impedance tomography (EIT); image reconstruction; inverse problem parameterisation; modelling; regularisation

Date Created: 20250121 Date Completed: 20250502 Latest Revision: 20250523

20260130

PMC11748830

10.1002/cnm.3907

39835713