Tympanic Membrane Displacement and Non-invasive Assessment of Cochlear and Intracranial Pressure Seminar
- Date:
- 8 December 2015
- Venue:
- To be confirmed
Event details
Variations in inner ear fluid pressures are transmitted across the middle ear, via the ossicles, and reflected in the low-frequency movement of the ear drum. These movements can be measured using a technique known as tympanic membrane displacement (TMD).
TMD is able to measure evoked responses, when the acoustic reflex is stimulated, as well as the spontaneous movement of the tympanic membrane(TM). These spontaneous measurements have revealed a regular pulsing pattern of the TM, in time with the heartbeat, and also a slower movement in time with the breathing cycle. It is believed that the driving force behind these spontaneous movements is in fact the intracranial pressure (ICP).
The link between ICP and cochlear fluid pressure means that TMD is in an exciting position to obtain information about a person’s ICP non-invasively.
Speaker information
Dr Cherith Webb, Southampton General Hospital . Cherith is an ISVR graduate, having completed her BSc in Audiology in 2010 and then her PhD on speech perception with cochlear implants in 2015. She worked for East Dorset Audiology Service as an Audiologist before moving to her current post as a research scientist at Southampton General Hospital in April this year. She is part of the Neurological Physics team (part of the Imaging Group) in the department of Medical Physics and Bioengineering and is working on the “Babelfish” project; investigating TMD as a non-invasive measure of intracranial pressure.