New type of implant

sr171soars,

This quote confused me: "Middlebrooks explains the benefits of the new device. “It will give people hopefully better hearing in complex environments and also some perception of pitches, so they’ll be able to enjoy music and also understand the melodious quality of other people’s voices.”

I'm confused by that quote because I'm already able to do that now. Everything I hear (speech and music) sounds 100% normal to me and I'm able to easily identify familiar music. The only exception is unfamiliar music. For whatever reason, unfamiliar music doesn't sound good to me. It never has and probably never will. :) Having said that, I realize many CI users do not share my experience when it comes to speech and music, so for them the new implant would definitely be an improvement over what they have now.
 
Hear Again said:
sr171soars,

This quote confused me: "Middlebrooks explains the benefits of the new device. “It will give people hopefully better hearing in complex environments and also some perception of pitches, so they’ll be able to enjoy music and also understand the melodious quality of other people’s voices.”

I'm confused by that quote because I'm already able to do that now. Everything I hear (speech and music) sounds 100% normal to me and I'm able to easily identify familiar music. The only exception is unfamiliar music. For whatever reason, unfamiliar music doesn't sound good to me. It never has and probably never will. :) Having said that, I realize many CI users do not share my experience when it comes to speech and music, so for them the new implant would definitely be an improvement over what they have now.
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I can see what you mean. I was referring more to the point related to the second paragraph. More specifically, the bit about

"Brain's response to hearing a tone. Coutesy John Middlebrooks.
In normal hearing, there is a strong response corresponding to frequency played. With the conventional cochlear implant, the brain registered sound, but not at a specific frequency. With the new intra-neural implant, the graph shows a strong, specific response–similar to normal hearing."

To simplify all this, this simply means that the new device will breakdown sound that closely matches what hearing people hear. Current CIs are much more limited in this regard. This is not so much an issue with speech "per se" as that is captured pretty well but any improvement will be better of course. Where this will shine is in music especially the more complicated it is. Think of understanding vocals so much better as those nebulous vocal sounds are reproduced more faithfully and fully in sound fidelity.

I hope that is less confusing. This device if it makes the market, it will put the current CIs to shame. That is why I'm all gung ho over it!
 
dreama said:
Sounds horrible. I'd go mad if I was forced to wear a hearing aid that I just couldn't switch off.
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I would be very surprised if it couldn't be turned off - it's got to be recharged somehow, and it's probably got to be programmed somehow, so it must have some way of communicating with a controller outside the body.

But yeah, adjusting to hearing that couldn't be turned off ... I don't know if I'd go for that, if there was any alternative.
 
sr171soars,

Thanks for the explanation. That makes perfect sense. I think I know what you mean now. Throughout the day I've been listening to music and there were several times where I mistook familiar songs as being different from the ones they actually were. I also noticed that if I listened very closely, some of the very high frequencies sounded off-key. If this new implant can improve that -- or give us the ability to hear bass (which would be awesome) I'd *definitely* go for it!
 
On the other hand..........who knows if its even going to be covered by insurance or affordable? There's a lot of amazing technology out there, but the average person really can't afford it even WITH insurance. (we all know how non generous insurance tends to be)
 
deafdyke said:
On the other hand..........who knows if its even going to be covered by insurance or affordable? There's a lot of amazing technology out there, but the average person really can't afford it even WITH insurance. (we all know how non generous insurance tends to be)
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and who knows if its very affordable.. since these days people are looking for cheaper ways.. ofc new tech will make things expensive.. but the more people get them the cheaper it will be i believe.
 
Good point, but I still think its going to be one of those "gold standard" medical things. Like there's a protheis available that has a really good knee. However its very pricey and most insurances don't cover it.
This is going to be the same thing. I mean when normal ordinary healthy people have healthcare cost issues, that means that only a very small percentage of people with health issues will be able to easily afford stuff like this.
 
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