Infrared Stimulation of Auditory Neurons

by Cesil Alex

Submitted : Fall 2016

Electrical stimulation is the gold standard for artificial neural stimulation [6]. The biggest disadvantage with electrical stimulation is that it scatters in the space it is allowed to, and it is difficult to achieve specific point stimulation[10]. Recently, infrared stimulation attracted attention to address this issue. Infrared stimulation works on the principle of heating the tissue. Exploiting the energy of infrared waves to heat the intercellular aqueous solution, helps transfer the energy to the cell membrane without direct contact and provides a more discrete localization of stimulation [1]. Here, in the present study, the temperature distribution was evaluated to be due to infrared heating in the aqueous medium which is a representative of human body as it is consist of 60% water. LaPlace transform was used to convert the convoluted function within the heat equation to a linear function in which we can plot variables to help us identify and predict the most effective temperature at which a neuron will be activated. This project describes the formulation of deriving temperature profiles used to predict optimal temperatures to activate cochlear neurons using calculus tools; which will catalyze the development of improved devices.

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