'In the Utah experiments, the researchers were able to apply laser pulses to hair cells to make adjacent nerve cells fire up to 100 times per second'.
'For a cochlear implant, the nerve cells would be activated within infrared light instead of the hair cells'.
Infrared Light Used to Stimulate Heart and Inner-Ear CellsMarch 29th, 2011 Wouter Stomp
Researchers from the University of Utah have succeeded in using infrared light to make rat heart cells contract and toadfish inner-ear cells send signals to the brain. This opens up many possibilities for implants using infrared light instead of electrical impulses to stimulate neurons and body functions. From the press release:
The scientists exposed the cells to infrared light in the laboratory. The heart cells in the study were newborn rat heart muscle cells called cardiomyocytes, which make the heart pump. The inner-ear cells are hair cells, and came from the inner-ear organ that senses motion of the head. The hair cells came from oyster toadfish, which are well-establish models for comparison with human inner ears and the sense of balance.
Inner-ear hair cells "convert the mechanical vibration from sound, gravity or motion into the signal that goes to the brain" via adjacent nerve cells, says Rabbitt [Richard Rabbitt, professor of bioengineering and senior author of the heart-cell and inner-ear-cell studies].
Using infrared radiation, "we were stimulating the hair cells, and they dumped neurotransmitter onto the neurons that sent signals to the brain," Rabbitt says.
He believes the inner-ear hair cells are activated by infrared radiation because "they are full of mitochondria, which are a primary target of this wavelength."
The infrared radiation affects the flow of calcium ions in and out of mitochondria – something shown by the companion study in neonatal rat heart cells.
That is important because for "excitable" nerve and muscle cells, "calcium is like the trigger for making these cells contract or release neurotransmitter," says Rabbitt.
The heart cell study found that an infrared pulse lasting a mere one-5,000th of a second made mitochondria rapidly suck up calcium ions within a cell, then slowly release them back into the cell – a cycle that makes the cell contract.
Rabbitt believes the research – including a related study of the cochlea last year – could lead to better cochlear implants that would use optical rather than electrical signals.
Existing cochlear implants convert sound into electrical signals, which typically are transmitted to eight electrodes in the cochlea, a part of the inner ear where sound vibrations are converted to nerve signals to the brain. Eight electrodes can deliver only eight frequencies of sound, Rabbitt says.
"A healthy adult can hear more than 3,000 different frequencies. With optical stimulation, there’s a possibility of hearing hundreds or thousands of frequencies instead of eight. Perhaps someday an optical cochlear implant will allow deaf people to once again enjoy music and hear all the nuances in sound that a hearing person would enjoy."
Unlike electrical current, which spreads through tissue and cannot be focused to a point, infrared light can be focused, so numerous wavelengths (corresponding to numerous frequencies of sound) could be aimed at different cells in the inner ear.
Nerve cells that send sound signals from the ears to the brain can fire more than 300 times per second, so ideally, a cochlear implant using infrared light would be able to perform as well. In the Utah experiments, the researchers were able to apply laser pulses to hair cells to make adjacent nerve cells fire up to 100 times per second. For a cochlear implant, the nerve cells would be activated within infrared light instead of the hair cells.
'The research team’s contributions to this development of medical microwaves includes simulation studies on the human head and brain at different frequencies, and has helped enable the development of early medical systems for brain analysis using microwaves. One such system is The Strokefinder MD100 from Medfield Diagnostics AB, which uses an antenna array to create three-dimensional (3D) images of a human brain. More will follow'.
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Hearing and Hair Cells
John S. Oghalai, M.D. Department of Otolaryngology & Communicative Sciences Baylor College of Medicine One Baylor Plaza Houston, TX 77030 joghalai@bcm.tmc.edu Hearing allows us to be conscious of what is going on around us, without actually paying attention to it. It is always working, day and night, to warn us of danger. Most importantly, hearing allows communication.
The basic principles of how hearing works is fairly simple to understand. Essentially, sound waves are detected by the ear, converted into neural signals, and then sent to the brain. The purpose of this article is to briefly describe this process.
The ear has three divisions: the external ear, the middle ear, and the inner ear. The external ear collects sound waves and funnels them down the ear canal, where they vibrate the eardrum. Within the middle ear, the eardrum is connected to the middle ear bones. These are the smallest bones in the body, and they mechanically carry the sound waves to the inner ear. The eustachian tube connects the middle ear to the upper part of the throat, equalizing the air pressure within the middle ear to that of the surrounding environment. The inner ear contains the cochlea. This is the organ that converts sound waves into neural signals. These signals are passed to the brain via the auditory nerve.
Coiling around the inside of the cochlea, the organ of Corti contains the cells responsible for hearing, the hair cells. There are two types of hair cells: inner hair cells and outer hair cells. These cells have stereocilia or "hairs" that stick out. The bottom of these cells are attached to the basilar membrane, and the stereocilia are in contact with the tectorial membrane. Inside the cochlea, sound waves cause the basilar membrane to vibrate up and down. This creates a shearing force between the basilar membrane and the tectorial membrane, causing the hair cell stereocilia to bend back and forth. This leads to internal changes within the hair cells that creates electrical signals. Auditory nerve fibers rest below the hair cells and pass these signals on to the brain. So, the bending of the stereocilia is how hair cells sense sounds.
Outer hair cells have a special function within the cochlea. They are shaped cylindrically, like a can, and have stereocilia at the top of the cell, and a nucleus at the bottom. When the stereocilia are bent in response to a sound wave, an electromotile response occurs. This means the cell changes in length. So, with every sound wave, the cell shortens and then elongates. This pushes against the tectoral membrane, selectively amplifying the vibration of the basilar membrane. This allows us to hear very quiet sounds. The electromotile response of an outer hair cell is shown in the movie:
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