Optical Cochlea Stimulator
Referenznummer TO 15-00091
Challenge
About 10-12% of the population experience hearing impairment or loss of hearing at some point in their life. The main cause of this impairment is, in many cases, localized in the inner ear, at the outer hair cell level.
Multi channel Optical-Cochlear-Stimulator
The outer hair cells serve to modulate the vibrations within the cochlea, and their loss results in varying degrees of sensorineural hearing loss, but not deafness. The inner hair cells serve as the main afferent input into the central auditory system, and loss of inner hair cells results in complete deafness. Traditionally, electrical neural stimulation has been used to bypass the nonfunctional peripheral sensory organ, the cochlea, to partly restore the auditory function needed for speech perception. However, the hearing performance with conventional hearing aids and cochlear implants is dramatically reduced in noisy environments and for sounds more complex than speech e. g. music, partially due to the lack of localized sensorineural activation across different frequency regions with these devices. Laser light can be focused in a controlled manner and may provide more localized activation of the cochlea.
Technology
The optical cochlea stimulator makes use of the optoacoustic effect: it is possible to induce a brief and localized thermal expansion of the tissue within the inner ear resulting in an acoustic transient with minimal heating effects, which induces vibrations of the basilar membrane and stimulates those inner hair cells that are still functional. As the optical cochlea stimulator transmits the laser light through multiple optical fibres, a spatially and thus frequency-selective stimulation of the inner ear can help replace the filtering function of the dysfunctional or missing outer hair cells. The device would be designed similar to cochlear implants already on the market: a speech processor worn behind the ear transmits signals to the implanted micro laser unit.
Commercial Opportunity
In-licensing or cooperation for further development is possible.
Developmental Status
Proof-of-principle experiments have been conducted in guinea pigs.
Patent Situation
A US patent application has been filed in 2009.
