Abstract
OBJECTIVE: This study reports two potential biomarkers of the physiological status of the cochlear nerve (CN) in cochlear implant users. DESIGN: This project represents a complementary analysis on a subset of electrophysiological data from our recently published study. This study compared changes in N1 latency and stimulation level (i.e., N1 latency offset and stimulation level offset) with increasing interphase gap of a biphasic pulse between children with cochlear nerve deficiency and children with normal-sized CNs. RESULTS: Children with cochlear nerve deficiency showed smaller N1 latency offsets and larger stimulation level offsets than children with normal-sized CNs at all electrode locations tested. CONCLUSIONS: The N1 latency and stimulation level offsets differ in two patient populations with different physiological statuses of the CN. These parameters may be useful for evaluating CN function in individual cochlear implant patients.