Am Donnerstag, dem 24.09.2015, findet in G29, Raum 301 ab 15.00 Uhr das Medizintechnik-Kolloquium statt.
Vortragender: Prof. Lenarz., Medizinische Hochschule Hannover
Thema: "Central auditory implants - investigations into the human brain"
Alle Interessenten sind herzlich eingeladen.
Abstract:
Hearing restoration with electrical stimulation is a powerful therapy. Most patients benefit from a cochlear-implant restoring the function of inner hair cells. However, if the auditory nerve is none functioning central auditory implants come into use. Two clinical applicable implant systems have been developed.
The auditory brainstem implant (ABI) stimulates electrically with surface electrodes at the cochlear nucleus. Up to 21 electrode contacts are placed and the patients can differentiate different types. Some of them achieve open-set speech understanding but on average the results are much poorer than with cochlear-implant. The second system is the auditory midbrain implant (AMI) with penetrating electrodes into the inferior colliculus and here in the central nucleus. So far only a very few patients have been implanted. However, the invaluable clinical investigations in those patients have a broad deep insight into the functional new anatomy of the human auditory system. Even after longer period patients can develop open- set speech understanding. The central auditory system is highly flexible and adaptive to the artificial stimulus. This might explain why even primitive stimulators are able to provide the efficient information for speech discrimination.
Current research is focused on the use of so called double shank electrodes where to shanks with ring electrodes are placed into the inferior colliculus. This helps to avoid rapid adaptation by stimulating only one side. Subsequent imaging studies have shown the activation pattern compared to normal listeners. Central auditory implants are, besides hearing rehabilitation, powerful tools to investigate into the human auditory system.
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