Science: develop the next generation of high elastic implants for the treatment of hearing impairment

October 21, 2019 news / BIOON / - -- nearly 500000 people in the world suffer from severe hearing impairment In some cases, cochlear implants and other types of implants have better effects in the treatment of hearing impairment However, these devices cannot help people with impaired inner ear or abnormal auditory nerve function In order to restore hearing, the electrical signal must be sent directly to the auditory brainstem The neural prosthesis for this purpose is called the auditory brainstem implant (ABI) However, the results of treatment for ABI are uneven What's more, clinical ABI is hard and can't fit the curvature of auditory brainstem accurately In order to solve this problem, in a new study, St é Phanie lacour team from the soft bioelectronic interface Laboratory (lsbi) of the Federal University of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne, Switzerland, developed a soft electronic interface in cooperation with clinicians from Harvard Medical School and the eye and Ear Hospital in Massachusetts As a kind of high elastic implant, the soft electronic interface fits neatly with the curved surface of the auditory brainstem, so it can send highly directional electrical signals It has been successfully tested in mice - the implants have a surface area of just 0.25 sq mm and are now produced in a size suitable for human use and in a form compatible with current surgical techniques It will undergo further research to prepare for human clinical trials Relevant research results were published in the Journal of Science Translational Medicine on October 16, 2019 The title of the paper is "microstructural thin film electronic technology enables proof of concept of scalable, soft audit brainstem implants" The new implant consists of a set of platinum electrodes encapsulated in silica gel "We are concerned about platinum because it has been widely used in clinical settings," said Nicolas vachicouras, CO lead author and postdoctoral researcher at the EPFL School of engineering Picture from EPFL Unfortunately, platinum is a hard metal that does not deform without being damaged The researchers overcome this obstacle by using kirigami, a traditional Japanese paper-cut technology, to etch Y-shaped patterns into metallized silica gel Then, they use the common technology of IC micromachining to machine the metal at the micron scale The result is a very soft and highly conductive electrode implant The researchers are already looking at other applications of the implant St é Phanie lacour, co-author of the paper, said: "the characteristics of the electrode implants we have developed are valuable for a variety of implantable neural prostheses, such as those used to stimulate or record nerve activity in the spine, brain and even peripheral nerves." (BIOON Com) reference: 1 Nicolas vachicouras El Al Microstructural thin film electronic technology enablers of concept of scalable, soft audit brain implants Science Translational Medicine, 2019, doi:10.1126/scitranslmed.aax9487 2.Developing next-generation soft hearing implants https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-10-next-generation-soft-implants.html