A child born without an auditory nerve system was completely deaf before meeting with top surgeons at U.N.C. Chapel Hill. After having undergone a clinical trial to implant a microprocessor in the brain stem of this infant, surgeons were impressed to notice that the patient , previously 100% deaf, had reclaimed the ability to hear whispers from across the room. “Where before he wouldn’t hear a jet on the tarmac, now he can hear the softest of whispers,” Craig Buchman, MD, FACS, Director of the UNC Ear and Hearing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The implant is called an ABI, an auditory brain stem implant, and will continue to be placed in future patients' brains for clinical trials.
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