En route to sound coding strategies for optical cochlear implants
Lakshay Khurana,
Tamas Harczos,
Tobias Moser,
Lukasz Jablonski
Affiliations
Lakshay Khurana
Institute for Auditory Neuroscience, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany; Auditory Neuroscience and Optogenetics Laboratory, German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany; Auditory Neuroscience and Synaptic Nanophysiology Group, Max-Planck-Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen, Germany; Junior Research Group “Computational Neuroscience and Neuroengineering”, Göttingen, Germany; The Doctoral Program “Sensory and Motor Neuroscience”, Göttingen Graduate Center for Neurosciences, Biophysics, and Molecular Biosciences (GGNB), Göttingen, Germany; InnerEarLab, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
Tamas Harczos
Institute for Auditory Neuroscience, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany; Auditory Neuroscience and Optogenetics Laboratory, German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany
Tobias Moser
Institute for Auditory Neuroscience, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany; Auditory Neuroscience and Optogenetics Laboratory, German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany; Auditory Neuroscience and Synaptic Nanophysiology Group, Max-Planck-Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen, Germany; InnerEarLab, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany; Cluster of Excellence “Multiscale Bioimaging: from Molecular Machines to Networks of Excitable Cells” (MBExC), University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany; Corresponding author
Lukasz Jablonski
Institute for Auditory Neuroscience, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany; Auditory Neuroscience and Optogenetics Laboratory, German Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany; Junior Research Group “Computational Neuroscience and Neuroengineering”, Göttingen, Germany; InnerEarLab, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany; Corresponding author
Summary: Hearing loss is the most common human sensory deficit. Severe-to-complete sensorineural hearing loss is often treated by electrical cochlear implants (eCIs) bypassing dysfunctional or lost hair cells by direct stimulation of the auditory nerve. The wide current spread from each intracochlear electrode array contact activates large sets of tonotopically organized neurons limiting spectral selectivity of sound coding. Despite many efforts, an increase in the number of independent eCI stimulation channels seems impossible to achieve. Light, which can be better confined in space than electric current may help optical cochlear implants (oCIs) to overcome eCI shortcomings. In this review, we present the current state of the optogenetic sound encoding. We highlight optical sound coding strategy development capitalizing on the optical stimulation that requires fine-grained, fast, and power-efficient real-time sound processing controlling dozens of microscale optical emitters as an emerging research area.
