Channel specific gain control including lateral suppression

A system for generating electrode stimulation signals for a plurality of stimulation electrodes in an implanted electrode array on a given side of a bilateral cochlear implant system having an implanted electrode array in each ear of an implanted patient, the system comprising:

• a pre-processor module configured for processing an acoustic audio signal with a bank of filters to generate a set of band pass signals, each band pass signal corresponding to a band of audio frequencies associated with one of the filters;
• an automatic gain control (AGC) circuit configured for performing a channel specific dynamic amplitude mapping of the band pass signals to generate a set of compressed band pass signals, the AGC circuit using a bilateral multiplication matrix characterizing a lateral suppression network and having at least one non-zero coupling element from a contralateral side;
• a stimulation timing module configured for extracting stimulation information from the compressed band pass signals to generate a set of stimulation timing signals;
• and
• a pulse shaper module configured for developing the stimulation timing signals into a set of electrode stimulation signals to the stimulation electrodes.