Cochlear implants boosted by gene therapy plus tiny LEDs

Can light restore hearing in deaf people? Researchers hope that through optogenetics, they can use micro-LED lights to make better cochlear implants than those used by deaf people today.

Standard cochlear implants function by stimulating nerves using an electrode placed inside the cochlea, a tiny spiral cavity inside the ear. These work, but sounds are distorted and muffled.

That’s because people who aren’t deaf can normally discriminate between about 2000 different sound frequencies, whereas cochlear implants allow only about a dozen to be distinguished. As a result, these implants make human speech sound a bit like that of a dalek, and music can be unpleasant.

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