They create a new cochlear implant based on light and tested on rodents

A new light-based cochlear implant has proven useful for restoring auditory responses in one rodent type, which could serve as a basis for a new generation of implants that transmit sounds with greater accuracy than traditional devices.

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The study provided a proof of concept (which serves to verify that a theory can be exploited in a useful way) which the combination of optical stimulation with genetic manipulation can restore the perception of sound .

The team, led by Christian Wroberl of the German University of Göttingen, used optogenetics, a method that combines optical and genetic methods, to achieve his experiment published today in Science. Translational Medicine.

Worldwide 360 million people with hearing loss and traditional cochlear implants. can recover the ability to hear from many of them by stimulating ear cells with electrical signals.

However, the ability of these devices to transduce (transform one type of signal into another) sound in noisy environments can be hindered.

Experts have designed a cochlear light-based implant to potentially produce spatially accurate stimulation of the ear cells, "notes the study.

Experiments were performed on gerbils (rodents) adults whose cochlea is larger than that of other rodents and detects the lowest frequencies that a person would hear.

The animals were trained to jump an obstacle after hearing an alarm and scientists then injected a virus with a gene capable of encoding a chain of light-sensitive ions in the cochlea, for allow their neurons in this area to be activated by light.

They also implanted in the cochlea fiber optic rodents to emit light signals, explains the study.

Gerbils with this implant jumped the obstacle when the cochlea cells were stimulated with a blue light instead of the alarm, "suggesting that the animals recorded the luminous stimulation as a sound. "

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At a later test, the authors induce a deafness in a group of rodents who carry the implant and find that although these gerbils can no longer hear the alarm they continued to jump the obstacle when they were subjected to optical stimulation, "which indicates that the implant has found the auditory response in animals" .