Shattered Nerves

A layman's explanation of the science of neuroprosthetics, including cochlear implants.

Infectious Complications in Pediatric Cochlear Implants

A review of the sources of infections in pediatric cochlear implant users.

Cochlear Implant Users at Gallaudet

Cochlear implant users make up 6% of all students at Gallaudet University in the Fall 2007 semester. (Scroll down.)

Seeking a Less Expense Cochlear Implant

India's former president APJ Abdul Kalam, fondly known as a people’s president, is seeking to develop a more cost effective cochlear implant through India's Defence Research and Development Organisation.

Cochlear Inc. a Likely Takeover Candidate

Cochlear makes sense as a takeover target....

Comparative Pitch Ranking of Complex Tones

Normally hearing participants obtained "significantly higher mean scores" compared with cochlear implant users on two experiments ranking complex tones by pitch.

Skin Flap Thickness in Cochlear Implant Patients

An article in Cochlear Implants International discusses various aspects of skin flap thickness.

FM Detection with Simultaneous AM by Cochlear Implant Users

A study published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America investigated the abilities of CI users to detect FM with simultaneous amplitude modulation and found that FM and AM in CI partly share a common loudness-based coding mechanism and the feasibility of “FM+AM” strategies for CI speech processing may be limited.

Auditory Brainstem Activity and Bilateral Cochlear Implant Use

Latency in auditory brainstem response tended to resolve in children implanted <3 years of age but not in children implanted at older ages with long delays between implants.

Latency differences were projected to persist for longer periods in children with long delays between implants compared with children with short delays.

Preverbal Communication of Cochlear Implant Children

A recent article in International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology reached some tentative findings:

[I]n deaf implanted children under 1 year of age, some preverbal communication behaviors are developing to an extent (although at a somewhat lower level) not significantly different from those of age-matched normally hearing children.

Combined Electric and Contralateral Acoustic Hearing

An article in the Journal of Speech and Language Research finds that:

A full-insertion cochlear implant provides better speech understanding than bilateral, low-frequency residual hearing. The combination of an implant and contralateral acoustic hearing yields comparable performance to that of patients with a partially inserted implant and bilateral, low-frequency acoustic hearing. These data suggest that a full-insertion cochlear implant is a viable treatment option for patients with low-frequency residual hearing.

Cochlear Implant Fixation in Children Using Periosteal Sutures

Article describes a simple technique for implant receiver/stimulator (ICS) fixation that uses a seat for the cochlear implant device and suture fixation through the native cranial periosteum.

Michael Chorost Visits Burning Man

....being visited by Michael Chorost, author of Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human - one of the more inspirational books I have read.

Peer Relationships of Children With Cochlear Implants

A recent issue of Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education examines Peer Relationships of Children With Cochlear Implants.

Psychological Status and Speech Perception Outcomes in Adolescent Cochlear Implant Users

A study conducted at Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey found that:

The majority of adolescents, in this study, achieved varying degrees of open-set speech recognition and made greater gains than their previous auditory experience with hearing aids. Also, the indirect positive effects of early identification-amplification, communication therapy and counseling programs on their personal well-being is clearly observed from the outcomes of their state and trait anxiety scores. As a result of correlating the trait and state anxiety levels with pre- and post-implant speech perception skills, a significant negative correlation was expected. However, no statistical correlation was found between speech perception skills and the psychological outcomes. This result may be the indicator of the positive effect of the early habilitation-parental support and cochlear implant on the quality of life as the adolescents involved in this study were developmentally and audiologically ready for implantation.

Phonological Awareness, Vocabulary, and Word Reading in Children With Cochlear Implants

A recent issue of The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education includes an article on the phonological awareness, vocabulary and word reading abilities of cochlear implanted children.

The phonological awareness, vocabulary, and word reading abilities of 19 children with cochlear implants were assessed. Nine children had an implant early and 10 had an implant later. As a group, the children fitted early had better performance outcomes on PA, vocabulary, and reading compared to hearing benchmark groups.

Bone Anchored Cochlear Stimulator

Dr. Sam Marzo of Loyola University Medical Center surgically implanted a bone-anchored cochlear stimulator that delivers sound to the inner ear by bone conduction.

"People unable to hear as a result of chronic ear inflammation or drainage can benefit from this new therapy," said Marzo, who also serves as program director of the Hearing and Balance Center at Loyola's Oakbrook Terrace Medical Center, One South Summit Ave, Oakbrook Terrace, Ill. "The device will work for people who do not have a functioning ear canal."

Michael Chorost on Laser Based Implants

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"As part of a project funded by the National Institute for Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), Claus-Peter Richter and his colleagues at Northwestern have demonstrated that they can control firing rates in the auditory nerve of animals using infrared laser radiation."

Docuweek Question and Answer with Irene Brodsky

Docuweek Question and Answer with Irene Taylor Brodsky, director of Hear and Now.

Q: What inspired you to make Hear and Now?

ITB: After being deaf for 65 years, my parents always told me they "didn't have time to learn to hear." So, it never occurred to me that they would actually try out cochlear implants. When they told me--20 years after the device was first invented--that they wanted to give sound a go, I knew it would be an epic experiment. I made the film to figure out their intentions as much as to document them.

Iowa Study on Localization Ability in Adult Bilateral Cochlear Implant Users

A University of Iowa study concludes that sequential bilateral implants can be beneficial even after many years of monaural use and even with very different cochlear implants. Speech perception and localization with adults with bilateral sequential cochlear implants.

Auditory Stem Implant for a New Zealand Child

Jorja Steele became the first child to receive an auditory stem implant in Australia, after cochlear implants provided no benefit. She is from New Zealand.

Neurosurgeons from three Melbourne hospitals, aided by a team of audiologists, implanted the device - a three-by-six-millimetres pad of electrodes that stimulates hearing pathways in the brain - during a four-hour operation.

Nucleus 22 and 24 Users Needed for Study

Brian Kelly, a graduate of Syracuse University in biomedical engineering, and a bilateral cochlear implant user is seeking subjects for his research project.

He's looking for adult research subjects who have had cochlear implants for at least six months and are using a Nucleus-22 or Nucleus-24 device. Subjects will participate in various experiments that study sound perception "in order to help us better understand how implants interact with the brain to encode sound, and how to improve implant functioning,"

Cochlear Corporation Labor Dispute

Cochlear Corporation is involved in a labor dispute with the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union at its Sydney manufacturing facility.

Neuroplasticity and Cochlear Implants

Researchers have found that cochlear implants may support the restoration of the brain's auditory pathways even after many years of deafness.

The results imply that the brain can reorganize sound processing centers or press into service latent ones based on sound stimulation. Jeanne Guiraud, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Lyon, Edouard Herriot University Hospital, and Advanced Bionics, a firm that makes cochlear implants, worked with deaf subjects from 16 to 74 years old and found that younger subjects and those with a shorter history of deafness showed changes that mirrored patterns in people with normal hearing more closely.

"The results imply a restoration to some extent of the normal organization through the use of the cochlear implant," says Manuel Don, PhD, of the House Ear Institute in Los Angeles. "They also claim to find ties between the degree of restored organization and a hearing task. Such ties are of enormous importance in evaluating cochlear implant benefits."

Canadian Parents Sue Government for Educational Support in Private Schools

A group of parents is planning to launch a lawsuit against the Ontario government, alleging it is discriminating against their children by not funding supports for students with certain disabilities who attend private religious schools.

New Zealand Taxes Cover Cradle to School Support

New Zealand's Labour party government is delivering a full program of support for children with hearing loss, including screening of newborns, providing cochlear implants, and extra support in school, says Education Minister Steve Maharey and Health Minister Pete Hodgson.

Royal National Institute for the Deaf Makes the Case for Affordable Cochlear Implants

The Royal National Institute for the Deaf says that the high cost of cochlear implants is a major limiting factor in the number of people who have received benefits from these medical devices.

New research by RNID, the national charity representing 9 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK, shows that millions of deaf people in Europe and the United States are unable to gain access to technology that could help them hear because it is too expensive.

Dr Ralph Holme, Head of Biomedical Research at RNID, says: "There is a gap in the market for a medical device company to produce a low-cost implant by using more cost-efficient manufacturing practices. Our market research shows that such a device would enjoy considerable commercial success whilst benefiting people who may not have had access to it previously."

Progress on Auditory Nerve Implants

A new study from the University of Michigan's Kresge Hearing Research Institute describes an ultra-thin electronic hearing device that can be attached directly to the auditory nerve and may offer a superior alternative to cochlear implants. Researchers have tested the new intraneural implant in cats showing that it is capable of transmitting a wide range of sounds to the brain.

"In nearly every measure, these work better than cochlear implants," said U-M researcher John C. Middlebrooks.

Studies of the electrodes in humans are about five to 10 years away, he said.

Cochlear Implant Restore Hearing for Patient with von Hippel - Landau Disease

Doctors at NIH and Georgetown University Medical Center used a cochlear implant for the first time to restore hearing in a patient with von-Hippel - Landau disease. A case report appears in a recent issue of Otology and Neurotology.

Advanced Bionics Forms Partnership in Southeast Asia

Advanced Bionics Corporation and The Hearing Solution Group, Southeast Asia's largest hearing health care provider, announce the formation of a partnership.

Through this mutual agreement, The Hearing Solution Group will advocate Advanced Bionics' cochlear implant devices, helping to further Advanced Bionics' commitment to providing superior service and support for its users throughout Southeast Asia.

The Hearing Solution Group is the largest hearing health care provider in Southeast Asia, serving Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. The organization is renowned for providing a spectrum of hearing health care - from counseling to basic and comprehensive audiological assessments to a full range of hearing devices, habilitation and rehabilitation, and service.

Louisiana Declares October Cochlear Implant Awareness Month

The Louisiana state senate proclaims October 2007 as Cochlear Implant Awareness Month. The press release claims that this is the first such official proclamation.

Graham Clark Wiins German Neuroscience Award

Graham Clark, has been awarded Germany's highest accolade in neuroscience, the 2007 Klaus Joachim Zulch prize, for his research into neuroscience and cochlear implants. He shared the prize with Dr John Donoghue who leads the brain science program at Brown University.

Michael Chorost at MIT Conference

Michael Chorost spoke about his experiences as a cochlear implant user at MIT's Media Lab conference, "H2.0: New Minds, New Bodies, New Identities," the lab's May 9 symposium that showed how addressing the challenges posed by disabilities can broaden the scope of human ability.

Keck Futures Initiative Grant to Study Cochlear Implant Children

The National Academy of Sciences announced that Phillip M. Gilley, a postdoctoral researcher in University of Colorado - Boulder's speech, language and hearing sciences department, and Arizona State University collaborator Michael F. Dorman, are one of 16 projects selected to receive the highly competitive Keck Futures Initiative grants, which support interdisciplinary research on "smart" prosthetics such as cochlear hearing implants. They aim to develop clinically useful and less invasive ways of studying the brain activity of children who wear cochlear implants.

Utah State University Enhances Hearing Impaired Program

This fall, USU will unveil Sound Beginnings of Cache Valley a $3 million initiative that will have an auditory-oral focus, concentrating on developing speaking skills rather than sign language.

Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education department head Beth Foley said the program will provide an alternative for deaf children and their families, not replace the department's sign language training program.

. . .

"Parents can, and should, be able to choose how they want to communicate with their children," Houston continued. "The fact is that 95 percent of all newborns with permanent hearing loss are born to hearing parents, and with all of the advances in the field, most of these parents want to communicate via spoken language. Many parents are now choosing to get their children cochlear implants, and these children need intensive follow-up training and services to take full advantage of this technology."

University of York Scientist Join Deafness Research UK

Deafness Research UK has appointed Professor Quentin Summerfield to be its new chief research adviser.


According to Professor Summerfield:

"Hearing research is entering a very exciting period -- never before have there been so many promising lines of research which could lead to new therapies, treatments, or even cures that will transform the lives of millions of sufferers.

Cochlear Implants in Third World Countries

Dr. Muazz Tarabichi, an American Board Certified Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist at the American Hospital Dubai spoke at a Deafness Week Seminar organised jointly by the College of Information Technology, University of Wollongong in Dubai (UOWD) and the American Hospital in Dubai.

While describing Cochlear Implantation (CI) as 'one of the most successful, life transforming, and expensive intervention in medicine today,' Dr Tarabichi said the different CI manufacturers are unable to cater to the needs of Third World countries.

'A CI device consisting of an internal and external apparatus costs approximately US$30,000 to $40,000. A software engineer in India, for example, who could in all likelihood be involved in programming such a device, would have to dedicate his entire income for six years just for the cost of the device, while a teacher would have to dedicate his earnings for 24 years.'

Neuralplasticity Blog

Michael Merzenich, the author of article Cochlear Implant News highlighted in February

(Advances in Neural Prostheses)

has a blog worth visiting.

New Adult Cochlear Implant Program in the UK

Health and Social Services Minister announces £750,000 cochlear implant program.

Medtronic Considers Cochlear Corporation Takeover

A research note from ABN AMRO suggests that a Cochlear Corporation could be an "attractive takeover candidate" for Medtronic Inc., which is currently seeking acquisitions.

Robotic Micro-Drill for Cochlear Implant Surgery

A surgical drilling robot, developed at the Aston University is expected to lead to improved hearing for cochlear implant patients.

It has been tested on three human patients all with successful outcomes. It drills a perfect hole, the perfect size, in the perfect place and to a perfect depth.

Study of Hearing Speech in Noise

Scientists in Great Britain show how the brain makes sense of speech in noisy environments:

In an ordinary setting, where background noise is minimal and a person's speech is clear, it is mainly the left and right temporal lobes that are involved in interpreting speech. However, the researchers have found that when hearing is impaired by background noise, other regions of the brain are engaged, such as the angular gyrus, the area of the brain also responsible for verbal working memory -- but only when the sentence is predictable.

The study was intended to simulate the everyday experience of people who rely on cochlear implants.....

Mann Foundation Donates $100 Million to Purdue

Alfred Mann is one of the giants of biotechnology and cochlear implant development.

The Mann Foundation for Biomedical Engineering has announced a $100 million gift to endow an Alfred Mann Institute at Purdue University.

The university-based institute is designed to enable the commercialization of innovative biomedical technologies that improve human health...

The $100 million endowment is the largest single endowment ever created for Purdue.

Cochlear Corporation's Growth Rate

An interesting article in The Australian about Cochlear Corporation's growth projections.

Hear and Now to be shown at Rochester Institute of Technology

Rochester native Irene Taylor Brodsky will attend a showing of Hear and Now on June 14 at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The film won the audience choice award at this year's Sundance film festival.

An intimate memoir, Hear and Now tells the story of Taylor Brodsky’s deaf parents, Paul and Sally Taylor, and their decision at the age of 65 to undergo risky cochlear implant surgery, a procedure that could give them the ability to hear. The film follows their complicated journey from a comfortable world of silence to a new and profoundly challenging world of sound.

The June 14 screening has special meaning to Taylor Brodsky because the proceeds from this event will benefit a scholarship in her parents’ honor to support deaf and hard-of-hearing film and animation students at RIT.

FWIW, netflix.com lists Hear and Now with no release date.

Cochlear Implant Invented in France, 50 Years Ago

According to this English language article in French newspaper, Metro International, France is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the invention of the cochlear implant. No detail are provided.

The National Day of Hearing in France yesterday included an important message about the cochlear implant, a French hearing invention that celebrates its 50th year.

Brief Michael Chorost Article in the San Francisco Chronicle

The article, Michael Chorost and his technological interface with the world, summarizes many of the points he makes in his book Rebuilt.

Graeme Clark at this year's Cochlear Celebration

Clark became interested in helping deaf people when, as a child, he saw his own severely hard-of-hearing father struggle in his career as a pharmacist and in his family life. "These were burnt in my memory, the difficulties, and I wanted to be an ear doctor at the age of 10 or 11," Clark said.

Illinois State University Program for Cochlear Implant Kids

Illinois State University announced Tuesday that the university has received a $778,941 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to train teachers, speech pathologists and audiologists throughout Illinois on how to work with children who have cochlear implants.

The grant will bring together 70 teachers and therapists from throughout Illinois who work with hearing impaired children from birth to age three, Lartz said. The teachers and therapists will learn how to work with the children and their families who want to use spoken language in addition to sign language, she said.

At the two Illinois locations where cochlear implant surgery takes place — Carle and Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago — teachers will be allowed to observe surgeries and therapy.

Cochlear Corporation Announces Graeme Clark Scholarships

Cochlear Corporation announced the winners of the fifth annual Graeme Clark Cochlear Scholarship, an award that recognizes the achievements of the company's cochlear implant recipients.

Fallout from Boston Scientifics Buyout of Advanced Bionics

The Boston Globe has a lengthy article about the tumult that followed Boston Scientific's 2004 purchase of Advanced Bionics. [Free registration required.]

Update: Alfred Mann wins a round in federal court, requests recission of merger with BSX.

On Tuesday, New York federal judge Alvin Hellerstein agreed with Mann and issued an injunction temporarily blocking Boston Scientific from removing Mann from his position. He said the company must first pursue the lengthy dispute resolution process outlined in the original merger contract.

....

After Hellerstein issued his opinion, attorneys for Mann asked the judge to consider a new option: Scrapping the merger agreement.

Because the two parties "will likely be locked in battle for years," the request said, the judge should consider voiding the deal -- a legal measure called rescission.

Advances in Neural Prostheses

An interesting article about developments in neural prostheses, including cochlear implants.

Cochlear Implant May Restore Balance

After developing a successful models in animals, Charles Santini, a scientist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, is designing a vestibular implant to restore the vestibular-ocular reflex, in humans.

Cochlear implants use a microphone and processor to code sound and send it directly to the cochlear nerve via electrodes implanted in the inner ear. They completely bypass the dead hair cells. Similarly, a vestibular implant uses tiny gyroscopic sensors to measure head movement and sends that information straight to the vestibular nerve using electrodes.

Wisconsin Study Shows Benefits of Bilateral Cochlear Implants

The study, released February 13th, made two important points:

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Although variability existed among the children, the study indicates that most did develop the ability to locate speech and other sounds more accurately when using two cochlear implants versus one. This capability also increased with experience.

"We're now seeing that the ability to localize sounds takes time to emerge," says Litovsky. "What seems to get better is the integration of the information from the two ears in the brain."

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Another crucial question is whether children should receive both implants simultaneously, at the same time, or sequentially, at different times, she says. The study's results have implications here, as well.

"The children we're looking at received their implants sequentially," says Litovsky, "and we think that their brains took a very long time to combine the inputs from the two ears." Yet, the fact they learned to do so points to the brain's adaptability, or "plasticity," she adds. "It reveals that the brain is still open to input from an ear that was deaf for a very long time."

Cochlear Corporation Reports Increased Earnings

Cochlear Corporation "achieved record revenue of $276.1 million in the six months to December 31, and a 31 per cent increase in sales to $240.3 million."

The 25-year-old company holds 70 per cent of the hearing implants market and said a main contributor to the first half result was sales of a newly launched backwards compatible Nucleus Freedom Speech Processor.

Quality Adjusted Life Years and Cochlear Implants

The My Son Tom blog has an interesting discussion of QALY Quality Adjusted Life Years and how that concept impacts the decision of a government health service to pay for unilateral and bilateral cochlear implants.

[QALY] is an attempt to measure the impact of medical interventions on both the quantity and quality of life resulting from said intervention. By throwing into the equation the cost of the interventions, the 'Powers That Decide Such Things' can make informed choices about which procedures to fund and to whom, based on their cost-effectiveness...

Education Support for Children with Cochlear Implants on Staten Island

An article in the Staten Island Advance describes the educational support currently available for children with cochlear implants.

Education officials acknowledge that children with cochlear implants who receive support services early on have a high likelihood of not requiring those services by the time they're in kindergarten, allowing them to join their normally hearing peers in general education classes.

Data From Experimental Hybrid Cochlear Implant Study

An article in the January 29 Seattle Post-Intelligencer provides clinical data about the FDA approved study of hybrid cochlear implants. Developed at the University of Iowa, the hybrid cochlear implant is designed to restore hearing loss without destroying residual hearing.

Of the 90 patients implanted with the new device, three have been removed after patients lost hearing between three months to two years after surgery and weren't happy with the results, Gantz said. Six patients lost hearing, but are using hearing aids with the implant and still hear better than they did before surgery, he said. In most patients, the surgery has been successful, with a patient's average word understanding increasing from 20 percent to more than 70 percent after having the implant for a year.

Graeme Clark Developing Spinal Implant

Cochlear implant pioneer Graeme Clark's latest project is a spinal implant to solve spinal cord injuries.

Using "smart plastics", the team is developing an implant that would be surgically inserted into the damaged area of a patient's spinal cord. "Smart plastics" conduct electricity and are combined with carbon nanotubes - thousands of microscopic fibres that touch nerve endings. The implant receives radio waves through the skin from a transmitter pack worn outside the body on the patient's back. The electrical stimulus received by the implant allows it to release nerve growth hormones that encourage damaged spinal nerves to regrow and eventually reconnect with other nerves.

Omaha Girl Dies of Menigitis

A seven year old Omaha, Nebraska girl with a cochlear implant died over the weekend from bacterial meningitis. She had not been vaccinated.

Louisville School to Offer Program

Kentucky's Heuser Hearing Institute is opening its doors to hearing children with their new Louisville Language Academy. Louisville Language Academy, a preschool for 2-, 3- and 4-year-old hearing children, will help improve the communication skills of hearing impaired students, including those with cochlear implants, by providing side-by-side learning opportunities in music, arts and crafts.

Cochlear Implant Film Wins Award at Sundance

"Hear and Now" won the audience award for best documentary at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Al Mann Honored in Los Angeles

Al Mann, founder of Advanced Bionics, the only North America based cochlear implant maker, was honored at the Los Angeles Venture Association's 4th Annual LAVA Awards Dinner on Thursday, January 18, at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Bone-Anchored Hearing Aids

An article in the January 2007 issue of the Archives of Otolaryngology--Head & Neck Surgery reports that outcomes following surgically implanted hearing aids that are anchored to bone appear comparable for children younger than 5 years and those older than 5 years.

Cochlear Implant Documentary at Sundance Film Festival

Hear and Now, a documentary about a 65 year old couple who have cochlear implant surgery will be shown at this year's Sundance Film Festival:

First time American filmmaker Irene Taylor Brodsky will travel to Park City with her doc "Hear and Now," which Sundance calls "a magical and deeply moving story of two people who embark on an extraordinary journey from silence to sound." After 65 years of silence, Paul and Sally Taylor decide to get cochlear implant surgery and experience something that has been absent all their lives--the realm of sound. Brodsky captures her deaf parents' complex decision to undergo the risky and controversial procedure, which is the only one that actually restores a sense. "Hear and Now" will screen in the Independent Film Competition: Documentary section at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival.

Audiologist Develops a Wireless MP3 Player for Cochlear Implants

Sandy Mintz, an audiologist with medical device company Advanced Bionics, is working with Samsung to develop a wireless system that will link an MP3 player to a cochlear implant.

Medicaid Covers Bilateral Cochlear Implant

In what the article describes as a landmark case, an Oklahoma couple won an appeal for Medicaid coverage of a bilateral implant for their child.