title: Assessment of inner ear bone vibrations during auditory stimulation by bone conduction and by soft tissue conduction.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Soft tissue conduction (STC), a recently described mode of auditory stimulation elicited when the clinical bone vibrator is applied to skin sites over the head, neck, and thorax, complements air conduction (AC) and bone conduction (BC), elicited by the same vibrator. The study assessed skull bone vibrations induced during STC and BC stimulation.
  
  
  METHODS
  The experiments were conducted on fat sand rats. Thresholds of auditory nerve brainstem evoked responses (ABRs) were recorded and compared to the lowest-intensity sound stimuli that elicited vibrations at the bony vestibule of the inner ear detected by a laser Doppler vibrometer.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Vibrations were detected during BC but not during STC stimulation. ABR was recorded to both STC and to BC stimulation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Low-intensity STC stimulation does not induce vibrations of the inner ear, showing that STC apparently does not involve mechanisms based on vibrations of bone.
authors.forename: Shai
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chordekar
authors.forename: Ronen
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Perez
authors.forename: Cahtia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Adelman
authors.forename: Haim
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sohmer
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D000818:Animals; D001309:Auditory Threshold; D001844:Bone Conduction / Q000502:physiology*; D007758:Ear, Inner / Q000502:physiology*; D016057:Evoked Potentials, Auditory, Brain Stem / Q000502:physiology*; D005849:Gerbillinae; D006309:Hearing / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats; D014732:Vibration