Descrizione del progetto
Tecnologie innovative per la diagnosi dell’ipoacusia
La sinaptopatia cocleare è un tipo di ipoacusia neurosensoriale causata dall’invecchiamento, dall’eccessiva esposizione al rumore o dall’ototossicità. Essa ha conseguenze funzionali sulla codifica neurale dei suoni e sulla comunicazione in ambienti rumorosi. Tuttavia, non viene diagnosticata o trattata nella pratica clinica. Progetti precedenti hanno sviluppato un solido test diagnostico basato sull’encefalogramma per quantificare la sinaptopatia cocleare nell’essere umano. Sulla base del loro lavoro, il progetto EarDiTech, finanziato dall’UE, integrerà un test diagnostico della sinaptopatia cocleare in un dispositivo medico portatile. EarDiTech eseguirà studi clinici allo scopo di dimostrare i benefici per i pazienti e il campo di applicazione del prodotto in un contesto reale. Il progetto svilupperà inoltre dimostratori hardware che incorporano processori gate array programmabili sul campo in tempo reale.
Obiettivo
Cochlear synaptopathy (CS) is a recently discovered type of sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) that compromises the integrity of the auditory-nerve population after ageing, noise-exposure or ototoxicity. This SNHL type occurs before the gold-standard clinical audiogram detects hearing problems and has functional consequences for neural sound encoding and communication in noisy environments. Despite its presumed high prevalence, CS is neither diagnosed nor treated in clinical practice. There is a WHO-identified need for early-diagnosis and treatment of SNHL to reduce the societal and economic burden of hearing loss, and CS-diagnosis falls within this category. In our ERC StG and PoC projects, we developed a robust, encephalogram-based diagnostic test to quantify CS in humans. Based on this test, we individualize hearing-impaired auditory models to design hearing-aid signal processing that compensates for CS. Our model-based, augmented-hearing algorithms can offer an accessible treatment to those suffering from CS and are based on a clever and versatile neural-network architecture that enables real-time sound processing.
In this project, we plan to implement our diagnostic CS-test (TRL4) in a portable medical device and perform clinical trials with early-adopters and first-point-of-contact centers to demonstrate its patient benefit and application range in a real-world clinical context (TRL5-6). Secondly, we aim to develop hardware demonstrators that embed our augmented-hearing sound processors. These real-time FPGA processors (TRL5) will be tailored for market-entry in the hearable, hearing-aid and cochlear-implant sectors. Along with consolidating our IP portfolio and setting out a business strategy, this challenge on Medical Technology and Devices will enable us to transition our proof-of-concept research discoveries to market with this project: EarDiTech: Precision Hearing Diagnostics and Augmented-hearing Technologies.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC) Main Programme
Argomento(i)
Invito a presentare proposte
HORIZON-EIC-2021-TRANSITION-CHALLENGES-01
Vedi altri progetti per questo bandoMeccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-EIC - HORIZON EIC GrantsCoordinatore
9000 Gent
Belgio