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Ear Implant Lets Deaf Gerbils Sense Sound From Light Signals (physicsworld.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: A research team at the University Medical Center Gottingen has created a cochlear implant that uses light to restore auditory responses in deaf gerbils. The study provides a proof-of-concept that combining optical stimulation with genetic manipulation can successfully restore sound perception, and could lead to a new generation of more accurate cochlear implants.
Approximately 360 million people worldwide have hearing impairment. Traditional cochlear implants can partially restore the ability to hear in many of these patients by stimulating ear cells with electrical signals. In such devices, however, the generated current tends to spread around each point of contact, activation of a large population of neurons and limiting the resolution and clarity of sound signals. Christian Wrobel and colleagues tackled this obstacle by designing a light-based cochlear implant. Optical stimulation promises spatially confined activation of neurons in the auditory nerve, potentially yielding spatially precise ear cell stimulation with limited spreading.
Approximately 360 million people worldwide have hearing impairment. Traditional cochlear implants can partially restore the ability to hear in many of these patients by stimulating ear cells with electrical signals. In such devices, however, the generated current tends to spread around each point of contact, activation of a large population of neurons and limiting the resolution and clarity of sound signals. Christian Wrobel and colleagues tackled this obstacle by designing a light-based cochlear implant. Optical stimulation promises spatially confined activation of neurons in the auditory nerve, potentially yielding spatially precise ear cell stimulation with limited spreading.
just laying around for testing shit like this
They still won't listen to you.
Why is it that experiments with gerbils always remind me of duct tape?
The earlier band Def Gerbil never really took off.
Then they got a new manager and changed their name.
But will they be able to hear in the dark? :-)
The need to develop a gerbil without the sense of smell.
Can we give these Gerbils wings? They could replace bats in the ecosystem. They would be much cuter than most bats. Bonus points if the wings are ribbed for Gere's pleasure
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
In all history, there has never been a better time to be a gerbil! Or a mouse! Get back to me when they have a version humans can buy for themselves...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
That is exactly what I was talking about.
alt.sex.hamster.ductape iirc
and it was HAMSTER
For those of you not following; there was a really bad joke in the 80's to the effect of Q: Why should you always duct tape your hamster? A: So it doesn't explode when you f**k it! The 80's were a simpler time, when coworkers didn't get fired for statements that would now be considered harassment.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Most cochlear implants spend ridiculous amounts of circuitry, or processing power, providing gain control. *Stop it*. Stop "power sampling" and sending power levels. The Ineraid implant used entirely analog circuitry, worked as well or better than the modern digital and oversized electronics, and you could safely MRI the people wearing them. Sadly, it relied on a jack sticking out of your head, but it *worked better* than the modern digital, undersampled, "let's replace the original sound wave with some python programmer's idea of how hearing would work if *they* invented it!!!!". The modern implants wildly undersample and throw away *all* the timing information by smearing the signals into a transmitted power band. Imagine a concert, with all the complexities of timing in the sound, replaced by constant tones turned up or down based on the power of the original sound in that frequency.
It's difficult to imagine anything more stupid, but that's how modern implants work.