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."