Estimating the Membrane Properties of Vestibular Type II Hair Cells using Continuous-time System Identification

Abstract In this paper we apply a continuous-time system identification method, known as the Simplified Refined Instrumental Variable method for Continuous-time systems (SRIVC), to the problem of estimating membrane properties of vestibular Type II hair cells. Due to the non-ideal characteristics of the experimental system, additional parameters, other than those of the membrane are required to be estimated. The SRIVC algorithm is modified to allow known poles and zeros to be forced into the estimator. This modified algorithm is then applied to the identification of the membrane properties of vestibular Type II hair cells, yielding results commensurate with typically accepted values.