Noisy environments, rooms with reflective surfaces and crowded conversations make hearing difficult for users, too. It’s not a perfect treatment, because the implanted electrodes lack the fine-tuned resolution of cochlear cells, required to distinguish every sound frequency in the audible spectrum. Today, hundreds of thousands of people with a hearing disability benefit from them ( 324,000 estimated users in 2012). ![]() At the moment, these visual prostheses are not able to replace natural sight, but only provide pixelated images that allow people to distinguish light, shadows and some shapes, but the technology is advancing rapidly.Ĭochlear implants were one of the first medical applications of neurotechnology, approved for therapeutic use in adults during the 1980s and for children at the turn of the century. The results were not optimal and the product was discontinued in 2020, but there are many other projects underway for different types of artificial retinas. It consisted of a digital camera mounted on a pair of glasses that sent the images to a processor, which converted them into electrical signals that were sent via wires to electrodes implanted in the retina. The first device of this type, called Argus II, was approved in the 2010s in Europe and the US. Artificial retinas began to be developed in the 1990s based on the same principle as the cochlear implant: picking up sensory stimuli from the environment-in this case visual stimuli-via a sensor and transmitting them to the nerve responsible for sending them to the brain. If cochlear implantation can restore hearing to those who have lost it, it is also possible to do something similar with sight in patients who have a functional optic nerve but have suffered degeneration of the photoreceptors in their retina, which occurs in genetic diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa or choroideremia. He encourages anyone who could benefit from it to undergo the operation as soon as possible: “Language is developed faster in childhood,” he explains. During his childhood and adolescence he went to various specialists and rehabilitation centres to train his brain to interpret the electrical impulses generated by his cochlear implant. In addition, Ortiz-like all those who have received the implant-had to relearn how to hear. Noisy environments, rooms with reflective surfaces and multiple speakers can make hearing challenging for users of these devices. But it’s not a perfect solution, as the implanted electrodes lack the fine-tuned resolution of cochlear cells required to distinguish every sound frequency in the audible spectrum. Approved for therapeutic use in the 1980s for adults and at the beginning of this millennium for children, it was one of the first medical achievements of neurotechnology and the second bionic device after cardiac pacemakers. ![]() The cochlear implant, which benefits several hundred thousand hearing-impaired people ( 736,900 devices have been implanted worldwide as of December 2019 ), is now familiar to us because of its popularity. The new techniques have already made it possible to moderate the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy, to speed up the rehabilitation of patients who have suffered a stroke, and are even beginning to fulfil the hope of restoring mobility to people with paraplegia and quadriplegia. But with the advent of neurotechnology, based on the physical connection of machines to the nervous system, doctors have achieved wonders beyond the reach of pharmacology. ![]() In fact, many of the brain’s inner workings are still a mystery to scientists and, therefore, they pose a challenge for physicians when something goes wrong. Just a few decades ago, the direct and controlled stimulation of the nervous system belonged in the realm of science-fiction. ![]() “The cochlear implant had a great impact on my life,” says Ortiz, now a young Barcelona resident who can hear and speak with fluidity. Sound didn’t arrive at his brain through the ear rather, it entered via a small microphone attached to the side of his head, which relayed radio signals to minute electrodes implanted in his auditory nerve. By the age of four, Ortiz could hear again, but the sensation was unfamiliar. The infection spread to his inner ears, where it destroyed specialised cells in charge of transforming the mechanical impulse of sound into the electrical impulse of the auditory nerve. Alejandro Ortiz became completely deaf due to meningitis when he was two and a half years old.
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