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The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health has announced a new research funding program, called HEARING, that would fund development of a minimally invasive hearing system designed to interface directly with the brain's auditory cortex rather than the ear alone.
Current hearing aids and cochlear implants work at the ear level. The ARPA-H program is premised on the idea that for many people, the root is neurological: the brain's ability to separate speech from background noise is where existing devices fall short. The HEARING program would fund three integrated components: a minimally invasive intracortical device for recording and stimulating the auditory cortex without open-skull surgery; a wearable sound modulator that wirelessly communicates with the implanted device; and AI algorithms that can adjust sound in real time based on what the listener intends to hear.
ARPA-H program manager Dr. Calvin Roberts has said the program design was shaped by conversations with people who have hearing loss. Nearly all said they would accept a brain-connected device if it did not require drilling a hole in the skull. The proposed approach would use a catheter-based delivery method, threading the device through a blood vessel rather than through open surgery.
This is a research funding initiative, not a clinical program. Any path to clinical use would require years of additional research and separate FDA review.
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