FEATURE ARTICLE
The Design and Function of Cochlear Implants
Fusing medicine, neural science and engineering, these devices transform human speech into an electrical code that deafened ears can understand
Michael Dorman, Blake Wilson
Ludwig van Beethoven was only 28 when he started to lose his
hearing. Although he went on to compose some of his most important
music, he described himself as alone, despairing, miserable. Today,
Beethoven might have been fitted with a cochlear implant—a
device that converts sound waves into electrical pulses that
directly stimulate nerves in the ear. Dorman and Wilson explain how
the implants perform this conversion, how the information travels to
the brain and how ongoing research in this field integrates findings
from the study of speech, nerve–cell biophysics,
microelectronics and molecular biology.
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