Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Human Body's Strongest Muscle Now An Aid To Hearing

'Hear through your mouth'-seems to be the new 'mantra' for the deaf. Colorado State University researchers, Prof. John Williams, Department of Mechanical Engineering, and J.J.Moritz, CSU graduate student, have been developing a device since one year, that will enable the people with hearing loss to 'hear with their tongue' (Yes, you read it right!).

According to the developers,tongue contains thousands of nerves and the area of the brain that interprets touch sensation from the tongue is capable of decoding complicated information. Thus, on the basis of this theory, they devised a gadget that circumvents the ear and directly hits the auditory nerve (nerve associated with hearing).


How Does it Work?
  1. The Microphone attached to a Bluetooth earpiece detects sounds and words from the environment.
  2. These sounds are then transmitted to the receiver, where they are converted to a distinct pattern, representing a word.
  3. The receiver then sends these patterns to an electrode-dense retainer fitted on the roof of the mouth.
  4. When the wearer presses his tongue to the retainer, he feels the pattern as a tingling/vibrating sensation.
  5. With training, the brain is able to interpret patterns and understand the associated words. 
The inventors guarantee its superiority to the traditional cochlear implants, which, till date have facilitated the deaf. Unlike the implants, they have promised low costs for it and vouched its use in people of all ages, with varied levels of hearing impairment.

Currently, Dr.Leslie Stone-Roy, a professor in neuroscience, who studies taste receptors on the tongue, has joined this team to study the parts of the tongue that respond to electrical impulses and whether it is consistent from person to person. Depending on the results, the position of the retainer might be standardized or customized to each person, which in turn will affect the costs.   

The Colorado duo have filed for a provisional patent for it and launched their company, 'Sapien LLC' to advance their technology.

For more information, check-out this video by the Colorado State University.

Resources:

  1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2942135/Hear-MOUTH-Device-lets-people-listen-words-feeling-distinct-vibrations-tongue.html
  2. http://boingboing.net/2015/02/05/words-in-the-mouth-device-let.html