Gregorio Marañón achieves a girl without auditory nerves can hear with an implant.

-is the first that this public hospital Madrid makes this intervention to a minor

-the girl already perceives sounds, six months after the operation, and is expected to be able to speak

Spain, February 2012.- El Hospital Gregorio Marañón, the public network of the community of Madrid, has carried out a major medical breakthrough when performing an auditory brainstem implant to a two year-old girl who was born deaf by absence of auditory nerves, and thanks to this intervention is now able to perceive sounds.

Six months after the intervention the child perceives sounds and remains the hope that it will be able to speak later. Implant trunk brain ear was the only possible option so that the girl could be heard, as or hearing aids or an implant cochlear, more common technique for this type of patients with bilateral profound hearing loss and a well-formed cochleathey had solved his problem because of the interruption of the auditory pathway through the nerve.

The auditory nerves connect the auditory pathway with cochleovestibular nuclei in the brainstem, where processed sound information that we perceive from the outside.

The surgery, which has carried out the medical equipment of the Gregorio Marañón with the collaboration of the Italian Otolaryngologist Mario Sanna, consists of the implantation of a plate of electrodes in the brain stem of the girl to give continuity to the auditory pathway. With the introduction of the electrodes is achieved that the electrical impulse reaches the auditory cortex.

Once placed the electrodes stimulation tests are performed to detect its functionality and the required level of stimulation. At the same time placed a two-way device at the head of the patient, in subcutaneous way, i.e., under the skin. This receiver captures the sound of another device placed on the outside of the patient’s head.

The internal receiver is responsible for decoding the signal received from the outside to transform it into electrical impulses that reach each of the electrodes, moment in which the patient receives the stimulus which spreads by the auditory pathway to the brain where the electrical impulses received will be processed.

Hospital Gregorio Marañon otolaryngologists had already spoken before, with this technique, to adult patients by deafness secondary to removal of tumors of the auditory nerve.