[tt] Neural net chip implant to restore hearing

[Hughes, James J.]

http://www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=82454&code=Ne5&category
=5

Doctors Use Artificial Network to Help Hearing Impaired
	 
A team of experts from Korea and Italy came together to perform a new
type of transplant surgery on a young girl with a hearing impairments.

The method they used involves a computer chip and an artificial network.

Lee Jeewon explains.
This five-year-old has been unable to hear sounds since she was born.

Her brain functions normally but what's been damaged is the nerve that
transmits sound signals from her ear to a part of her brain called the
aural centrum.

Now a team of Korean and Italian researchers have come to her rescue to
restore that link.
The Yonsei University College of Medicine and Italian experts have
transplanted a computer chip and an artificial neural network into the
girl's brain.

The electronic nerve transforms sound into digital signals, which are
transmitted to the brain stem and processed by the aural centrum.

Following the transplant doctors say they've begun detecting in the
child, the signature brainwaves of sound perception.

The Yonsei medical team is hopeful that the girl's condition will
improve allowing her not only to hear but to speak as well.

The doctor who led the operation says:

[INTERVIEW : ] ''About half of what she hears has been transmitted to
the brain. We anticipate the transmission to improve further.''

The treatment is applicable to most hearing-impaired people with the
exception of those who've suffered brain damage.