Basilar membrane and osseous spiral lamina motion in human cadavers with air and bone conduction stimuli

It is generally accepted that bone conduction (BC) stimuli yield a traveling wave on the basilar membrane (BM) and hence stimulate the cochlea by the same mechanisms as normal air conduction (AC). The basis for this is the ability to cancel or mask a BC tone with an AC tone and the ability to generate two tone distortion products with a BC tone and an AC tone. The hypothesis is proposed that BC stimulates the BM not only through the hydrodynamics of the scala vestibuli and scala tympani, but also through osseous spiral lamina (OSL) vibrations. To test this hypothesis the BM and OSL response with AC as well as BC stimulation was measured with a laser Doppler vibrometer. Human temporal bones mounted on a shaker were used to record the velocities of the bone per se, the BM and the OSL. The measurements were then converted to relative BM and OSL velocities. The results from the basal turn of the cochlea show similar behavior with AC and BC stimulation. The motion of the OSL at the edge where it connects to the BM is in phase and is typically 6 dB lower than the BM motion. With BC stimulation, there is less phase accumulation in the OSL after the cochlea is drained; the OSL moves due to inertial forces and resonates at approximately 7 kHz. Inertial vibration of the OSL may partially contribute to the total response of BC sound, especially at the high frequencies, although current models of the cochlea assume a rigid OSL. The measurements reported here can be used to include a flexible OSL in cochlear models.