Effect of opening middle-ear cavity on vibrations of gerbil tympanic membrane

This paper presents in vivo experimental measurements of vibrations on the pars flaccida, along the manubrium and at several points on the pars tensa in the gerbil with open middle-ear cavity. The effects of progressive opening of the middle-ear cavity are presented, with up to five different extents of opening. In all manubrial, pars-tensa and pars-flaccida responses, opening the cavity causes an increase in the low-frequency magnitude and a shift of the main middle-ear resonance to lower frequencies and introduces an antiresonance. However, opening the cavity has little or no effect on either the mode of vibration of the manubrium or the breakup frequency of the pars tensa. When the opening is gradually widened, the antiresonance frequency moves to higher frequencies. When the opening is made as wide as anatomically possible, the antiresonance moves to almost 10 kHz. The main increase in the low-frequency response magnitude happens upon making the smallest hole in the cavity wall, and further progressive enlarging of the opening has little or no effect on the low-frequency magnitude. The antiresonance interferes with the response shapes. An identification method is suggested for eliminating the effect of the antiresonance in order to estimate the ideal open-cavity response. The method is validated and then applied to manubrial and pars-tensa responses. Estimating the ideal open-cavity responses will simplify comparison of the data with numerical models which do not include the air cavity. The data collected at intermediate stages of opening will be useful in validating models that do include the cavity.