Development of a finite element model of a human head including auditory periphery for understanding of bone-conducted hearing

A three-dimensional finite-element (FE) model of a human head including the auditory periphery was developed to obtain a better understanding of bone-conducted (BC) hearing. The model was validated by comparison of cochlear and head responses in both air-conducted (AC) and BC hearing with experimental data. Specifically, the FE model provided the cochlear responses such as basilar membrane velocity and intracochlear pressure corresponding to BC stimulations applied to the mastoid or the conventional bone-anchored-hearing-aid (BAHA) positions. This is a strength of the model because it is difficult to obtain the cochlear responses from experiments corresponding to the BC stimulation applied at a specific position on the head surface. In addition, there have been few studies based on an FE model that can calculate the head and cochlear responses simultaneously from a BC stimulation. Moreover, in this study, the intracochlear sound pressure at multi-positions along the BM length was calculated and used to clarify the effect of stimulating force direction on the cochlear and promontory velocities in BC hearing. Also, the relationship between BC and AC stimulation and the basilar membrane velocity in the FE model was used to calculate the stimulation level at hearing thresholds which has been investigated only by psychoacoustical methods. Keywords: Auditory periphery; Bone conduction; Finite element model; Human head