Inner ear implant uses biological battery to self-charge

A team of surgeons, neuroscientists, and electrical engineers has developed a cochlea chip that extracts electrical signals from the inner ear to power itself.

The chip is the latest in a series of inventions aimed at creating entirely self-sufficient, self-powering implants that will remove the need for external power and enable permanent surgical implantation in some cases. This year alone, Stanford University announced the creation of its radio wave-powered heart implant and infrared light-powered retinal implants.

Cochlear implants have been around for decades, with the first electrical stimulation of auditory nerves taking place in the 50s. Though the implant has been a great success, with hundreds of thousands of people with severe hearing difficulties receiving the implant each year, they still run on batteries so are fairly cumbersome. MIT hopes to change all that by taking advantage of a natural battery that lies dormant within the ear.

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