Image Credit: Nurotron
China’s National Medical Products Administration announced approval of Nurotron’s WH-01A auditory brainstem implant, developed with Professor Wu Hao’s team at Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital. The implant addresses an important limitation of cochlear prostheses in patients with severe inner-ear malformations or an absent cochlear nerve may lack the anatomical pathway needed for cochlear stimulation to produce hearing. The WH-01A bypasses the cochlea and cochlear nerve, delivering electrical stimulation through an electrode array placed on the surface of the brainstem’s cochlear nucleus.
According to the developing team’s announcement, the system incorporates a 16-contact electrode array, a high-rate stimulation chip, and a coding strategy designed for Mandarin’s four lexical tones, with the ability to stimulate and record neural responses simultaneously. Registration trials began in 2022, with implantation and follow-up completed in 2024.