The main challenge is how to improve the accuracy of the FE model in terms of predicting middle ear transfer function.
Hence, the outer and middle ear transfer functions limit the ability to detect low-amplitude audio signals and affect the absolute threshold of hearing [24, 25].
Although validation for the middle ear transfer function was achieved by experimental data from human cadaver ears, it is not clear which data were used for the validation of the BM response.
The authors were able to compute the middle ear transfer function and the BM vibration displacement normalised by the stapes displacement as a function of the distance from base.
This requires surgical eradication of inflammatory disease and eventually extensive microsurgical reconstruction of the tympanic membrane, including insertion of partial or total middle-ear prostheses for ossiculoplasty to achieve restoration of middle-ear transfer function.
Recently, there have been two major reasons for developing FE models – one is to simulate the acoustic-mechanical transmission from the external auditory canal to the cochlea with a focus on the middle ear's transfer function (Koike et al. 2002; Gan et al. 2004, 2006; Gan et al. 2007, 2009; Gan and Wang 2007; Zhao et al. 2009).
So, for example, consider the stapes, one of the three bones in your middle ear that are responsible for transferring sound waves from the eardrum to the membrane of the inner ear.
Vibrations of the tympanic membrane are carried through the middle ear ossicles, the malleus, incus, and stapes, and transferred to the auditory portion of the inner ear, the cochlea.
The middle ear space is normally an air filled chamber, across which sound is transferred by a chain of 3 ossicles (bones) to the cochlea in the inner ear.
A working finite element (FE) model of the human middle ear can be created by using the published material properties of middle ear components to study sound transfer function.
