Novel device to help deaf patients hear effectively

Chinese researchers have developed the world's first bionic neuromorphic auditory nerve interface, a groundbreaking electronic device that bypasses damaged natural auditory nerves to deliver processed sound signals straight to the neural pathways.

The technology, created by a team at Nankai University in Tianjin, represents significant research advances in the field of neuromorphic auditory restoration, offering a new technical approach and research perspective for auditory rehabilitation in patients with severe sensorineural hearing loss.

The research was published online recently in the international journal Nature Materials.

Around 3 percent of the global population suffers from sensorineural hearing loss, a condition triggered by broken or missing auditory nerve fibers that act as the signal "highway" between the ears and brain.

According to data from the World Health Organization, over 430 million people worldwide require hearing rehabilitation, yet conventional hearing restoration cannot work if the patient's auditory nerve is severely impaired or completely lost, and struggles with poor speech recognition in noisy environments.

According to the research team, conventional hearing restoration only converts sound into basic electric pulses and relies entirely on surviving natural auditory nerves to transmit signals.

Restricted by fixed timing circuits and limited electrode counts, they lack the natural auditory system's ability to filter background noise and distinguish subtle speech differences.

This critical gap has long forced deaf patients to rely on quiet, controlled settings to communicate effectively.

"Our long-term core goal is building an artificial nerve that can select, analyze and encode valuable audio information just like real biological tissue, shifting hearing restoration from merely recovering acoustic signal input to reconstructing full auditory function," said Xu Wentao, lead researcher and corresponding author of the paper. He is a professor at Nankai University's College of Electronic Information and Optical Engineering.

The integrated device combines self-powered sound capture, neuromorphic signal coding, natural language processing and biological electrical output into one compact system.

In animal trials, deaf rabbits implanted with the bionic interface regained the ability to accurately recognize spoken commands and complete corresponding matching tasks.

The experiment proved the artificial nerve forms a complete closed signal loop identical to natural auditory pathways.

Xu's team has specialized in artificial neuromorphic nerves since publishing the world's first flexible artificial tactile nerve in the journal Science back in 2018.

After eight years of continuous research, the 40-plus team, with an average age under 30, has built a full multi-modal artificial nerve system covering hearing, sight, touch, smell and taste, holding independent intellectual property rights for all core technologies.

Going forward, the team will push forward clinical trials and industrial transformation of the bionic auditory interface.

The technology is expected to expand applications across medical neuroprosthetics, smart brain-machine systems and embodied intelligence, bringing accessible, high-quality hearing recovery treatment to deaf populations worldwide, Xu said.

yandongjie@chinadaily.com.cn