For many of us, that constant, disturbing ringing in our ears is bad enough to make us think about a brain implant. MicroTransponder, a company that’s been working on a similar device for some time, has proven an implant could train the brain to stop tinnitus. Placed not exactly inside the brain but on the nerves in the neck, the implant, apparently, does quite a good job stopping this ear infection. The invention sounds good enough and we bet many thought about trying on this implant, the only upsetting news is the fact that even if the device works properly, no one actually knows how it works, the team at MicroTransponder including.
The implant is targeting the cranial nerve X, or the vagus nerve, which is the tenth major nerve that exits the brain. The vagus is actually a network of nerves that divide and reach to many regions inside the whole body, so the team didn’t know for sure which branch to target. Considering the nerve is often used to treat everything from depression to obesity, ear infections could also be treated using to the nerve X, so the team begun testing the theory.
One method MicroTranponder used was pairing auditory cues with electrical stimulation to identify the triggers of the tinnitus. Another method was pairing non-tinnitus tones with the stimulation, which can reduce the representation of the tinnitus activity in the brain. This way, the tinnitus activity is diminished . Not much is known about how tinnitus occurs, but it’s possible it’s linked to the otoacoustic emissions, the natural resonances from within the air. This emissions are not the main issue though, being responsable of only 10% of the tinnitus affected individuals, so apart from treating the disease, the implant will also help find the exact sound that causes the ear infection.
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Even if the technology is quite new, an implant already has an owner, a child having hearing problems had its old implant removed and replaced with a this one. The vagus nerve implant seems to be the best option tinnitus sufferers have, apart from the neural reprogramming that short-circuits undesirable sounds and perceptions, that may not be very pleasant. Such implants could be used in the future to treat more ear diseases, not only tinnitus. With this implant, we could witness a new era of hearing aid devices and why not, various implants that could treat other organs’ diseases.