Effects of tympanic membrane perforation on middle ear transmission in gerbil

Perforations of the tympanic membrane (TM) alter its structural and mechanical properties, thus resulting in a deterioration of sound transmission through the middle ear (ME), which presents itself clinically as a conductive hearing loss (CHL). The resulting CHL is proposed to be due to the loss of the pressure difference across the TM between the outer ear canal space and the ME cavity, a hypothesis which has been tested with both theoretical and experimental approaches. In the past, direct experimental observations had been either from the ME input (umbo) or the output of the stapes, and were focused mainly on the low frequency region. However, there was little documentation providing a thorough picture of the influence of systematically increasing sizes of TM perforations on ME sound transmission from the input (i.e., pressure at the TM or motion of the umbo) to the output (pressure produced by the motion of the stapes). Our study explored ME transmission in gerbil under conditions of a normal, intact TM followed by the placement of mechanically-induced TM perforations ranging from miniscule to complete removal of the pars tensa, leaving the other parts of ME intact. Testing up to 50 kHz, variations of ME transmission were characterized in simultaneously measured tone induced pressure responses at the TM (P_TM), pressure responses in the scala vestibuli next to the stapes (P_SV), and velocity measurements of the umbo (V_umbo), as well as by detailed descriptions of sound transmission from the TM to the stapes, i.e., the umbo transfer function (TF), the transfer of the sound stimulus along the ossicular chain as found from the ratio of cochlear pressure to umbo motion, and ME pressure gain (MEPG). Our results suggested that increasing the size of TM perforations led to a reduction in MEPG, which appeared to be primarily due to the reduction in the effective/initial mechanical drive to the umbo, with a relatively smaller decrease of sound transfer along the ossicular chain. Expansion of the perforation more than 25% appeared to drastically reduce sound transmission through the ME, especially for the higher frequencies.