Getting in tune

Scientists believe it is possible to tune the cochlea so that sound bypasses damaged areas of nerve.

The theoretic possibility of restoring hearing in a re-tuned cochlea is described by scientists from Switzerland and South Africa in a scientific journal. The idea is to let functioning parts of the cochlea take over the sound processing from damaged parts. Injury to the cochlea (nerve centre of the ear) is a common cause of hearing loss. The damage may be done by infections, medications, acoustic trauma and ageing. Whatever the cause, the resulting damage affects the ability to detect sounds in certain frequencies, such as the frequencies of human speech. The hearing loss appears as holes in the normal frequency range.

These holes may be closed by re-tuning healthy parts of the cochlea to make them able to receive and process sounds that would normally be processed by the damaged areas.