Otoacoustic Emission

 

                                                         1978: Otoacoustic Emission

                                                                     David Kemp  

David T. Kemp, a British physicist, is credited with the discovery of otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) in 1978. 

His groundbreaking work revealed that the human ear not only receives sound but also emits sound, a phenomenon previously unknown.

1978: David Kemp first described OAEs while working at University College London.

He used a small microphone and speaker in the ear canal to detect sounds emitted back from the cochlea after a sound stimulus. This discovery provided non-invasive access to cochlear function,

                           

                           

                                                         Types Of Otoacoustic Emissions

2 Major Otoacoustic Emissions 

Spontaneous Evoked Otoacoustic Emission

Distortion Product Otoacoustic Emission 

Spontaneous OAEs (SOAEs): Emitted without any external stimulus.

Distortion Product OAEs (DPOAEs): Elicited by two simultaneous tones (f1 and f2) and are useful for frequency-specific analysis.

Clinical Use 

Differentiating Types of Hearing Loss:

• Present OAEs + Hearing Loss = likely neural (e.g., auditory neuropathy).
• Absent OAEs + Hearing Loss = likely sensory/cochlear (e.g., outer hair cell damage).

Current Events

Snapshot