RESONANCE FREQUENCIES OF THE HUMAN SKULL IN-VIVO

Patients with skin penetrating titanium implants in the temporal bone, for attachment of bone-anchored hearing aids, have made it possible to investigate the free-damped natural frequencies (resonance frequencies) of the human skull in vivo. The resonance frequencies of the skull of six subjects were investigated. The resonance frequencies were extracted from two frequency response functions (acceleration/force) measured on each subject: One point measurement where the force and acceleration were both measured at the same point, and one transcranial measurement where the acceleration was measured contralaterally. Between 14 and 19 resonance frequencies were identified for each subject in the frequency range 500 Hz to 7.5 kHz. The two lowest resonance frequencies were found to be on the average 972 (range 828-1164) and 1230 (range 981-1417) Hz. The relative damping coefficients of all resonances were found to be between 2.6 and 8.9%. Due to the relatively high damping coefficients, it is assumed that the resonance frequencies do not significantly affect bone conducted sound. In the transcranial measurements, however, a few large antiresonances were found which may affect bone-conducted sound. Intersubject variations were large, probably due to individual variations in skull geometry and in mechanical parameters. The results were shown to be consistent with previous results obtained on dry skulls. No obvious correlation between lowest resonance frequency and skull size was found.