Behind the Tech to Restore Voice, Expression in ALS and Beyond

"He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak." [Mark 7:37]

I was privileged as a young scientist to lead a team that helped develop the modern cochlear implant, which (in several different forms) has restored hearing to approximately 800,000 formerly profoundly deaf individuals.

The crude information representing language sounds that cochlear implants deliver to the brain through stimulation of surviving auditory nerve fibers is sufficient for the remarkable plastic machinery of our brains to ultimately reinterpret it as normal-sounding speech.

Michael Merzenich, PhD

But what about the large population of individuals who can hear speech, but are unable to verbally respond? Such mute individuals fall into two large classes. Many have endured brain injuries that have physically destroyed speech production abilities in their brains. In others, the cortical speech production "machinery" is intact, but because of physical injury to the vocal tract (from cancer, trauma, or brainstem injury), the tract is neurologically dysfunctional. Nearly 20 years ago, I met a young child — let's call her "Katy" — who was a delightful sprite in my extended family. Near her fourth birthday, a nanny focused on watching her baby sister while Katy was playing on a playground slide with her jump rope.