The ear is a very
difficult and sensitive apparatus. When
it is functioning properly, we can admire its usefulness. The ability to appreciate the fine details
of a classical masterpiece to the ability to hold a conversation in a crowded
room all stem from the fact that we have a functioning auditory system. However, sometimes something goes wrong with
the apparatus and when this occurs the person suffers a hearing loss. There are
two basic types of deafness: conductive, which
affects the outer and middle ear, and sensori-neural,
which is caused by a malfunctioning of the inner ear or the auditory nerve.
Some forms of
deafness can be improved by corrective surgery or hearing aids. However, up until the last two to three decades
many scientists have considered severe-to-profound sensori-neural deafness to
be incurable.
Research into
cochlear implants began in the late 1960s by the Australian scientist Graeme
Clark and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne. In 1978, the first prototype was installed
in an Australian named Rod Saunders who had become profoundly deaf after a head
injury. From this, he regained partial
hearing.
How the
Cochlear Implant (CI) works
LINKS:
- To diagnose yourself, see: Cochlear
Implants. NIH Consensus Statement 1988
- Acoustic
Stimulation of Cochlear Implants
- Cochlear Implant
Association, Inc. (CIAI)
- Clinical
Psychoacoustics Lab
Manufacturers
- AllHear, Inc.
- Advanced
Bionics Corporation (Clarion)
- Philips Hearing
Implants
- Cochlear
Corporation (Nucleus)
- MED-DL (Cambi)
- MXM
Laboratories (digisonic)
REFERENCES:
Wilson BS, RebscherS, Zeng FG, Shannon RV, Loeb GE, Lawson DT, Zerbi M. Design for an inexpensive but effective cochlear implant. Otolaryngol. Head Neck Surg. 1998: 118(2):235-41
Zeng FG, Fu QJ, Morse R. Human hearing enhanced by noise. Brain Res. 2000 June 30:869(1-2)_251-5
Zeng FG, Shannon RV. Psychophysical laws revealed by electric hearing. Neuroreport. 1999 Jun 2:10(9):1931-5
Zeng FG, Grant G,
Niparko J, Galvin J, Shannon R, Opie J, Segel P. Speech dynamic range and its effect on cochlear implant performance. J Acoust Soc Am. 2002 Jan;111(1 Pt 1):377-86.
http://www.science.org.au/nova/029/029key.htm
http://www.medel.com/languages/us/medel_us.html
http://www.ucihs.uci.edu/com/hesp/