Volta's Crazy Experiments

Guys and gals, don't try this experiment at home! You wouldn't want to run 120V household electricity in your ears! Just kidding, but please just don't try it at any voltage levels!

"Interest in stimulating hearing with electricity began with Count Volta in the 18th century. Volta, an Italian physicist who developed the electric battery, connected batteries [approximately 50V] to two metal rods that he inserted in his ears. In 1800 he described that when the circuit was completed he received a 'jolt in the head' and then a sound 'a kind of crackling, jerking or bubbling as if some dough or thick stuff was boiling' (Epstein:1989: 34). Not surprisingly, Volta found that it was quite uncomfortable and did not repeat the experiment too often!

Fifty years after Volta, a Frenchman, Duchenne of Boulogne, tried using an alternating current to stimulate his hearing and heard what he described as a sound like an insect trapped between a glass pane and a curtain."

Source: powerhouse museum

Cochlear Implant History (AB)

Cochlear implant history

Two-hundred years ago, a scientist by the name of Alessandro Volta inserted metal rods attached to an active circuit into his ears. He described the sensation as similar to the sound of boiling water. This was the first documented attempt to provide electrical stimulation directly to the auditory system.

Although additional attempts continued throughout the next 50 years, by the mid 1800's the thought of using electrical stimulation as a therapeutic method was rejected. It wasn't until the 1930's that the effects of electrical stimulation on hearing were studied again. Two independent research teams, one from the United States and one from the Soviet Union, found that hearing sensations were achieved by individuals who were deaf when they received electrical stimulation to the middle ear. Neither of these investigations, however, resulted in a practical application for a hearing implant primarily because the technical difficulties encountered at the time could not be overcome.

By the late 1950's, scientists in France reported the first successful electrical stimulation of hearing nerves by inserting an electrode in a deaf subject's inner ear. The patient perceived the rhythm of speech and reported that the stimulation provided assistance in lipreading. This was the beginning of the development of modern-day cochlear implants.

Throughout the 1960's tremendous energy was devoted to studying and developing cochlear implants, and by 1970 the first wide-spread clinical application was underway. These early generation cochlear implants were single-channel devices that sent coded information to only one electrode site in the inner ear. These devices provided patients with speech and sound awareness and enhanced lipreading ability, but generally did not provide auditory-only speech recognition.

The introduction of multichannel devices in the 1980's represented a major advance in cochlear implant technology. Multichannel devices stimulate hearing nerve fibers at multiple locations along the length of the cochlea and where all electrodes are stimulated at once, or sequentially, where electrodes are stimulated one at a time.

Stimulating nerve fibers at multiple locations is important because each nerve fiber in the inner ear is "tuned" to a different pitch depending on its location. Hearing nerves are organized so that high frequencies are picked up at the base of the cochlea while low frequencies are picked up at the center or apex. This arrangement is referred to as the "tonotopic" organization of the ear. With the introduction of multichannel systems, the ability to understand speech without lipreading was achieved.

Source: Advanced Bionics

PBS Documentary

Here's interesting about Deaf people opposing views on Cochlear Implants. Some anti-implant deaf guy thinks that the cochlear implant may create a robot culture. Ummphh!

Click for Sound and Fury documentary.

Rush Limbaugh, Cochlearized in 2001

Here's some interesting articles about Rush's cochlear implant experience. Remember that he is a postlingual which is unlike me. I am a prelingual. Just read some interesting information below.

Rush's Cochlear Implant Surgery A Success

Rush Talking About His Hearing

Media Q&A with Rush's Doctors

CI Surgery Videos

Unfortunately, these videos aren't the videos of my surgery!

It is very graphic surgery video and please be prepared to pass out. :P

SEE THE SURGERY FLASH VIDEO (Flash required)

SEE THE SURGERY VIDEO (RealPlayer required)

Bandage removed

It really feels good to have the bandage removed!

Learn about Cochlear Implants

My surgeon recommended this brand over other brands because of my case with severe ossification of cochleas. My left ear's cochlea was solidified with ossificated bones which cannot insert any electrodes on my left ear. So surgeon said that he saw little hole in my right cochlea and Nucleus Freedom have the thinnest electrodes over other brands for that reason, it can be inserted up to 80%.

For all those who don't know about cochlear implantation systems, you may be able to browse lots of information about CI. So go to each links below:

Cochlear's Nucleus Freedom (my implant)

Advanced Bionics' Bionic Ear

Cochlear Implants: Navigating a Forest of Information... One Tree at a Time (Gallaudet University's Clerc Center)

About.com's Cochlear Implants Information

CI Surgery Completed.

I have gone under surgery known as cochlear implantation. It has occurred on November 17th 2005 at Johns Hopkins Outpatient Center. Began surgery at noon and completed about 3:30pm.

Got home about 8pm and I got very hungry. Only can eat liquid foods or soda. I can't eat solid foods to prevent vomitting, oh well! But in the morning, it was a blessing to eat solid food once again! No dizziness and no pain, but continued to maintain my medications to prevent from feeling the pain.

Implanted with Nucleus Freedom.