Tiny Force Probe Device Could Lead to New Treatments for Hearing Loss

Stanford University researchers are developing a tiny moving probe to study the mechanical properties of sensory cells in the ear - the tiny, flexible hair cells that translate sound waves into electrical signals. Their research could lead to new treatments for hearing loss, and could also advance other scientists' research. At 300 nanometers thick, the probe is just three-thousandths the width of a human hair. Made of flexible silicon, it can mimic a much wider range of sound wave frequencies than rigid glass probes, making it more practical for studying hearing. The probe also measures the force it exerts on hair cells as it pushes, a new achievement for high-speed force probes at such small sizes.

Transcript

00:00:05 Stanford University.
>> The probe is a MEMS device, which stands for Micro-Electromechanical Systems device. And it's a very small device that is able to allow us to stimulate the very small hair bundles inside of our ear. These probes are special because they're able to actually go much faster than any of the probes previously have been able to do. Additionally, they're able to actually sense forces that these hair bundles are generating.
>> It was designed by Beth Pruitt, who's a professor over in engineering.

00:00:38 We wanted to make a probe that was small enough to stimulate a single cell, and fast enough to work at frequencies that we hear at. So we need it to go at tens of thousands cycles per second or tens of thousands of hertz, and so if we wanted to study how humans hear or how mammals hear in general. We needed this new piece of equipment.
>> The research that we're doing is, looking into how the actual hair bundle is the transection process works. And, so this is going to allow us to better characterize the kinetics, as well as the mechanics of the hair bundle.

00:01:16 The research is getting basically at how the system works normally. And the idea being that in order to try to fix the system later on, we need to know how it works in its normal state.
>> This is the process that most likely gets damaged in noise, so in that noisy environment. Soldiers in battle. People that like to go hunting. Airline pilots. People that like music. All these people are getting higher levels of

00:01:41 noise for longer periods of time than they should. And so trying to figure out what those limits are is really important to figure out how to prevent that damage from happening in the first place. Then people will hear better for longer.
>> For more, please visit us at stanford.edu.