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Bone Conduction and the Middle Ear

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The Middle Ear

Part of the book series: Springer Handbook of Auditory Research ((SHAR))

Abstract

With more than a century of research in the field of bone conduction (BC) hearing, the importance of the contributors for bone-conducted sound is not clarified and there is no consensus on the issues. However, the literature suggests that the inner ear fluid inertia is the most important mechanism for speech frequencies. But several other contributors are generally within 10 dB of the most important one, including inertial effect of the middle ear ossicles. Most pathology in the outer and middle ear that severely affects the air conduction sound transmission affects the bone conduction sensitivity only to a minor extent. So even if the changed bone conduction sensitivity in a middle ear lesion is helpful for understanding underlying bone conduction physiology, its clinical relevance is minor. Also, the use of BC thresholds for differential diagnosis of the specific middle ear lesion is risky; the Carhart notch is not always identifiable in cases of otosclerotic ears, and other lesions show BC depression similar to the Carhart notch. There are several pitfalls when conducting BC testing. The most common are occlusion of the ear canal, airborne sound radiation from the transducers, and unmasked or overmasked nontest ear.

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  1. Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine/Technical Audiology, Linkö** University, 58185, Linkö**, Sweden

    Stefan Stenfelt

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  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, USA

    Sunil Puria

  2. Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, USA

    Richard R. Fay

  3. Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

    Arthur N. Popper

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Stenfelt, S. (2013). Bone Conduction and the Middle Ear. In: Puria, S., Fay, R., Popper, A. (eds) The Middle Ear. Springer Handbook of Auditory Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6591-1_6

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