The Cass Foundation has awarded $60,000 to support Bionics Institute researcher Dr Demi Gao in her work to improve cochlear implant programming for infants.
Dr Gao, a senior Research Fellow, is leading research which seeks to enhance cochlear implant management for infants to ensure their implants are set up correctly at the earliest stages of life.
The research uses an innovative hearing test developed by Bionics Institute researchers. The test employs a non-invasive imaging technology – functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) – to measure brain responses to different sound levels while infants are asleep.
The Cass Foundation funding will help the team establish a method to determine hearing thresholds and comfort levels in normal hearing infants. This could enable development of a technique that guides minimum and maximum electric stimulation levels adjustment and optimises the infant cochlear implant programs.
It will also establish a new standard for compassionate and precise paediatric care for babies with cochlear implants.
“In this project, the fNIRS responses will be recorded using a commercial fNIRS system, NIRScout device from NIRx Medical Technologies, LLC,” Dr Gao told HPA.
“The new technique we aim to develop will help determine hearing thresholds and comfort levels. If successful, it will be translated into EarGenie.”
The EarGenie system, developed by Professor Colette McKay, principal scientist at the Bionics Institute and leader of its translational hearing program in Melbourne, is a non-invasive, harmless brain imaging system for detecting auditory responses in babies, infants and young children.
EarGenie uses light via fNIRS to measure the brain’s response to sounds via a headband containing light sources and detectors that wrap around the child’s head. The headband connects to a laptop via Bluetooth. When the brain responds to a sound, there is a change in oxygen level in the brain detected by EarGenie.
These changes indicate whether the child has heard the sound and if they can differentiate between different sounds. It is similar to blood pulse oximeters clipped on the finger in hospital to measure oxygen levels – like a pulse oximeter for the head.
Dr Gao said the resulting clinically viable tool aimed to improve cochlear implant management, leading to better speech and language outcomes and improved quality of life for babies with cochlear implants.
The Cass Foundation is a private philanthropic foundation established in 2001 to support and promote the advancement of education, science and medicine, and research and practice in those fields. CASS is an acronym for Contributing to Australian Scholarship and Science.
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