ACE Strategy with Virtual Channels

Abstract

Cochlear implant is an electronic device, which can mediate hearing sensations to profoundly deaf people. Contemporary cochlear implants are sophisticated electronic devices; however, their performance could still be improved. This paper describes an experiment we made in that direction: additional 21 virtual channels were implemented by sequential stimulation of adjacent intracochlear electrodes, and the ACE strategy with virtual channels (ACEv, Advanced Combination Encoder strategy with virtual channels) for the Nucleus® 24 Cochlear Implant System was created and verified in a clinical test with four patients.