Chinese researchers develop device to help 'understand' sound

Researchers in China have developed the world’s first bionic neural device that enables the brains of individuals with hearing impairments to ‘understand’ sound rather than merely ‘hear’ it. The device, created by a research team from Nankai University in Tianjin, northern China, offers a novel electronic substitution and repair approach for hearing reconstruction, surpassing conventional cochlear implants. ‘Currently, cochlear implants only address the problem of “hearing.” However, limited by fixed time-signal-based mechanisms and a restricted number of electrodes, cochlear implants still lag far behind the natural auditory system in terms of temporal resolution and speech recognition in complex acoustic environments,’ said Xu Wentao, who led the research at the School of Electronic and Optical Engineering, in a Nankai University press release on Monday. ‘Our goal is not just to make the system capable of “hearing,” but to enable it to truly “understand” sound, meaning it can select, process, and transmit valuable auditory information like natural nerves,’ he said, adding that the new device marks a significant step in hearing restoration from ‘restoring perception’ to ‘rebuilding function.’ The study, titled ‘An artificial neuromorphic interface for auditory recovery,’ was published online on 1 July in the journal Nature Materials. According to the research, hearing depends not only on the ear but also on the auditory nerve, which acts like a ‘superhighway’ transmitting sound signals to the brain. Sensorineural hearing loss, a type of deafness caused by damage to this pathway, affects approximately 3 per cent of the global population. Traditional cochlear implants can convert sound into electrical signals but still rely on the patient’s remaining auditory nerve to complete the final transmission process. Once the auditory nerve is severely damaged or lost, ‘even the most advanced cochlear implants become ineffective,’ Xu said, adding that this long-standing challenge is what his team’s breakthrough seeks to overcome. The new device, described as a ‘neuromorphic interface’ that mimics the natural encoding processes of biological auditory nerves, integrates sound acquisition, neural encoding, semantic processing, and bioelectric output into a complete artificial neural loop. The research team explained that the device not only captures sound but also filters, analyses, and encodes it in a manner resembling the natural auditory system before conveying meaningful information to the brain. ‘Going forward, we will continue our research in the fields of neural repair and bionic intelligence, and work hard to move our core technology from the laboratory to clinical use and the market,’ Xu said. ‘We hope to achieve more breakthroughs in neural prosthetics, smart healthcare, brain-computer interfaces, and embodied intelligence,’ he added.