Decoding of human compound action potentials

The physiological formation of the action potentials is presumed to be well-known and a method of decoding these potential is therefore based on this knowledge. The method uses the reverse process, i.e. deconvolution of the recorded AP's with a unit response, and a subsequent nonlinear transformation of the obtained waveforms (sigma PST-compound PST) from the time- into the location domain (distance along the coclear partition). The transformed waveforms are called excitation patterns. Stimulus polarity seems to have only a minor influence on the excitaton patterns and it is possible to produce frquency-specific information of the coclear function. A clinical case demonstrates the concordance between the excitation patterns and the puretone audiogram.