Scala vestibuli protheses

15.11.2022—14.02.2025
FWF Stand-Alone Project
Project leader: Frank RATTAY (E101-03)

Cochlea implants are the most successful neuroprostheses. More than one million people can hear in cases where other hearing aids are not of any help. In 1984 I published the first dynamic model of the electrically stimulated auditory nerve and now, 40 years later, we have again a research project on the efficient placing of electrodes in a normal and an obstructed cochlea with two postdocs namely Cornelia WENGER and Andreas FELLNER. Analyzing the physics I introduced the ‘activating function’ which quantifies the driving forces of an applied electrical field on nerve or muscle cells. Medical applications include paralysis and stroke, deep brain stimulation against Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord stimulation against pain and spasticity, stimulation of vagus nerve or retina, as well as magnetic stimulation and pacemaker for the hearth.