Method and system for electrical stimulation of a patient's cochlear

A system for electrical stimulation of a patient's cochlea, comprising

• a cochlear implant electrode arrangement comprising a plurality of stimulation channels;
• means for providing an audio signal;
• means for dividing the audio signal into a plurality of analysis channels, each containing a frequency domain signal representative of a distinct frequency portion of the audio signal;
• means for establishing an electrode-nerve-interface model of hearing stimulation via the cochlear implant electrode arrangement, the model describing, for each of the stimulation channels, the hearing perception impact of a stimulation signal applied to that stimulation channel on the other stimulation channels, wherein each stimulation channel is associated with at least one of the analysis channels;
• means for determining a signal level value and a noise level value for each analysis channel by analyzing the respective frequency domain signal;
• means for determining a noise reduction gain parameter for at least some of the analysis channels as a function of the signal level value and the noise level value of the respective analysis channel, wherein the hearing perception impact of stimulation of stimulation channels other than the stimulation channel(s) associated with the respective analysis channel on the stimulation channel(s) associated with the respective analysis channel is taken into account via the electrode-nerve-interface model;
• means for applying noise reduction to the frequency domain signal according to the noise reduction gain parameters to generate a noise reduced frequency domain signal;
• and
• means for generating a stimulation signal for each of the stimulation channels according to the noise reduced frequency domain signal and supplying the stimulation signals to the electrode arrangement in order to stimulate the cochlea.