Bipolar cochlear nerve recording technique: a preliminary report.

To preserve hearing during vestibular neurectomy and acoustic neuroma removal, the cochlear nerve must be identified. Present techniques, including monitoring eighth nerve action potentials, help the surgeon identify those maneuvers that increase the risk of nerve injury but do not help in the anatomic identification of the cochlear nerve or the cochlear-vestibular cleavage plane. The purpose of this study was to demonstrate an electrophysiologic method of identifying the cochlear portion of the eighth cranial nerve. A flush-tipped, bipolar electrode recording probe was used to directly record responses to monaural click stimuli from the cochlear nerve but not from surrounding tissue