Phase coherence of cochlear microphonic potentials in cochlear implant users with ipsilateral residual hearing

Intracochlear recorded growth functions of cochlear potentials evoked by acoustic tones were analyzed by their phase coherence, variance, and density distribution. Potentials obtained from electrocochleography recorded in cochlear implant users with ipsilateral residual hearing were analyzed in the complex domain. The study shows that (1) the phase of the cochlear microphonic (CM) is coherent across stimulation levels, (2) CM potentials are circularly symmetric normally distributed in the complex domain, regardless of stimulation level or response amplitude, and (3) the variance of CM potentials remains consistent, irrespective of stimulation level. Based on these findings, we introduce a method that utilizes the phase coherence across stimulation levels to improve the accuracy of CM amplitude estimates, particularly when amplitudes are close to the noise floor. A key aspect of this method is addressing the bias introduced by the circularly symmetric normal distribution of additive Gaussian noise in the complex domain, which can lead to overestimation of signal magnitude. The results show that phase coherence can be used to enhance the accuracy of amplitude estimates of cochlear potentials, thereby making the recording process more efficient. Furthermore, the consistent variance of cochlear potentials enables noise estimations from recordings containing receptor potentials, independent of the stimulation level.