http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2014/cochlear-implants-with-no-exterior-hardware-0209.html
MIT scientists have developed a low power signal processing chip that could lead to a cochlear implant requiring no external hardware. Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary doctors collaborated with the researchers. The implant would be wirelessly recharged and run for eight hours.
Instead of an external microphone, the implant would use the natural microphone of the middle ear, which is almost always intact in cochlear implant patients.
The design exploits the mechanism of a middle ear implant. Middle ear ossicles convey the vibrations of the eardrum to the cochlea, which converts acoustic signals to electrical signals. In patients with middle ear implants, the cochlea is functional, but the stapes ossicle doesn’t vibrate with enough force to stimulate the auditory nerve. A middle ear implant consists of a tiny sensor that detects the ossicles’ vibrations and an actuator that helps drive the stapes.
The new device would use the same type of sensor, but the signal it generates would travel to a microchip implanted in the ear, which would convert it to an electrical signal and pass it to an electrode in the cochlea. Lowering the power requirements of the converter chip was the key to eliminating the skull mounted hardware.
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