Overview and challenges of implantable auditory prostheses.
Year: 2013
Type: article
Abstract: Until the middle of 20th century it was believed that a full understanding of the anatomy and physiology of the ear and the neural system is required for achieving successful auditory prostheses devices that can substitute the clever and subtle functions of the middle and inner ears and the associated neural structures. Surprisingly however very quickly auditory implants happened to become successful enough to be an accepted clinical treatment for restoring hearing and communication abilities to individuals with profound and severe deafness and have been used by around 200,000 people worldwide to date. Auditory implants bypass the ear and stimulate the auditory system electrically via tiny electrodes inserted in close contact with or directly inside the auditory processing structures of the brain, from where neural activity transmits to cortical areas and produces auditory perception. The first demonstrations that electric stimulation, instead of sound, can induce auditory sensations likely started more than two centuries ago with an unpleasant sound when the Italian scientist Alessandro Volta (1745–1827) placed the two ends of a 50-volt battery to his ears. Electronic hearing was brought into clinical practice in 1960's and has considerably improved in both safety and performance since the early trials that electrically activated a wire simply inserted into the ear of the deaf volunteers.
Source: PubMed
Author: Mahan Azadpour
Institutions: University of Manchester, Syracuse University
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W294774306