How Nucleus 5 Works
Nucleus® 5 is Designed to Mimic Natural Hearing
Deep in your ear is a remarkable pea-sized structure called the cochlea. The cochlea is fully developed at birth. Tiny, delicate hair cells in the cochlea communicate sound signals to your brain, allowing you to hear different pitches and sounds. If these delicate cells are damaged, you can lose some or all of your ability to hear.
Cochlear implants are designed to compensate for the damaged cells, helping to restore your ability to perceive and understand sounds. A cochlear implant works by bypassing the damaged part of the ear and sending sound signals directly to the hearing nerve.
How Nucleus 5 works
1. The external sound processor captures sounds, then filters and processes the sounds.
2. The sound processor translates the filtered sounds into digital information, which is then transmitted to the internal implant.
3. The internal implant converts the digital information into electrical signals, and sends them to a tiny, delicate curl of electrodes that sits gently inside the cochlea.
4. The electrical signals from the electrodes stimulate the hearing nerve, bypassing the damaged cells that cause hearing loss, allowing the brain to perceive sound.
How natural hearing works
1. Sounds enter the ear canal and travel to the eardrum.
2. These sound waves cause the eardrum to vibrate, setting the bones in the middle ear into motion.
3. This motion is converted into electric impulses by tiny hair cells inside the inner ear (cochlea).
4. These impulses are sent to the brain, where they are perceived by the listener as sound.
