New Book Traces Cochlear Implant Research at RTI International

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – A new book, Better Hearing with Cochlear Implants: Studies at the Research Triangle Institute, offers a comprehensive account of decades’ worth of research to improve cochlear implants. 

The book, written by former RTI scientist Blake Wilson of Duke University and his colleague Michael Dorman of Arizona State University, highlights research that was conducted primarily at RTI and that provided key pillars in the foundation for the present-day devices. 

Presented as an annotated compilation of sections from the most important National Institutes of Health progress reports, the book gives readers access to previously unpublished data as well as a broad and logically organized overview of the research. The reports were produced as a part of the work in a series of seven contiguous projects at RTI.

“The development of cochlear implants is widely regarded as a great advance in modern medicine, and we are proud of the role RTI played in producing this technology,” said Wayne Holden, Ph.D., RTI president and CEO. “The benefit to humanity from these devices has been enormous.”

The first chapter of the book describes the work conducted at RTI in the context of the multiple other efforts worldwide. 

The remainder of the book is divided into four sections that describe the major lines of investigation pursued at RTI: design and evaluation of novel processing strategies; electrical stimulation on both sides with bilateral cochlear implants; combined electric and acoustic stimulation of the auditory system; and representations of temporal information with cochlear implants. 

Each section includes an introduction by the authors followed by two or more chapters that describe important advances made in each of these areas. The overviews presented in the introductions explore the significance of the research for each area and how the different areas related to each other. 

The book may be used as a primary text on cochlear implants and can serve as a reference for physicians, audiologists, neuroscientists, designers of neural prostheses, and scientists and other specialists whose work is aimed at the remediation of hearing loss. 

Better Hearing with Cochlear Implants: Studies at the Research Triangle Institute was published by Plural Publishing and is available at the Plural website and from leading commercial book sellers.