3D printed biomimetic cochleae and machine learning co-modelling provides clinical informatics for cochlear implant patients
Published in Nature Communications, 2021
Recommended citation: Lei, I.M., Jiang, C., Lei, C.L. et al. (2021). "3D printed biomimetic cochleae and machine learning co-modelling provides clinical informatics for cochlear implant patients." Nat. Commun.. 12, 6260. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26491-6
Cochlear implants restore hearing in patients with severe to profound deafness by delivering electrical stimuli inside the cochlea. Understanding stimulus current spread, and how it correlates to patient-dependent factors, is hampered by the poor accessibility of the inner ear and by the lack of clinically-relevant in vitro, in vivo or in silico models. Here, we present 3D printing-neural network co-modelling for interpreting electric field imaging profiles of cochlear implant patients. With tuneable electro-anatomy, the 3D printed cochleae can replicate clinical scenarios of electric field imaging profiles at the off-stimuli positions. The co-modelling framework demonstrated autonomous and robust predictions of patient profiles or cochlear geometry, unfolded the electro-anatomical factors causing current spread, assisted on-demand printing for implant testing, and inferred patients’ in vivo cochlear tissue resistivity (estimated mean = 6.6 kΩcm). We anticipate our framework will facilitate physical modelling and digital twin innovations for neuromodulation implants.