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Dr. Ruth A. Conley is an Assistant Professor of
Biology at Shepherd College. She earned a Ph. D. in Biology from
Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut and a postdoctoral
degree in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins Medical
Institute. Her research focuses on the brain and behavior, with an
emphasis on sensory systems. She has received research grants from
the National Institute of Health and the Office of Naval Research and
has published numerous articles and papers in prestigious journals,
including the Journal of Comparative Physiology, the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and the
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. She is a member of
the International Congress of Neuroethology, the Society for
Neuroscience, and the J.B. Johnston Research Society.
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"The
Bionic Ear: Creating Brain Implants and
Other Technologies for Better Hearing"
Today, over 60,000 deaf people have been implanted
with neural prosthetics to restore their hearing. Construction and
use of prosthetic devices for hearing has many psychological and
sociological implications for the deaf community as well as for
educational, mental, and military institutions. Research at many
levels has allowed scientists, the medical industry, and governments
to produce hi-tech devices for hearing applications. Of particular
interest is the question of how the nervous system produces a code
for important sounds, such as speech sounds, and how individuals
discriminate one sound from another. We can then attempt to emulate
a neural code for speech sounds in developing hearing devices. This
presentation discusses recent basic research in understanding the
“hearing code” and some current applications. These applications
include a “bionic ear” to restore normal hearing to the hearing
impaired as well as hearing devices for military applications –
especially for underwater exploits such as navigating submarines and
identifying and following underwater targets. |
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Download PDF Flyer
for Presentation |
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