Auditory responses evoked by optical stimulation on the optogeneic-infected cochlear neurons in the guinea pigs

Abstract

Cochlear implants (CIs) are by far the optimal option to partially restore hearing for the patients of sensorineural hearing impairment (HI) by electrically stimulating spiral ganglion neurons (SGNs). However, wide current spread from each electrode constitute an interface which restricts precision and quality of the electrical CIs. Recently, optogenetic stimulation of the cochlea has been proved as a more optimized approach via adeno-associated virus (AAV) carrying the gene encoding the light-sensitive channelrhodopsin-2. Here, we focus on summarizing recent work on stable and accurate ChR2 expression and compare the electrophysiological recording of optogenetic and acoustic stimulation in adult guinea pigs. Light stimulation generated auditory responses that was similar to that of acoustic stimulation. Moreover, normal hearing adult guinea pigs responded with a rise in amplitudes with increasing light intensity. In conclusion, optogenetic cochlear stimulation achieved good spectral selectivity of artificial sound encoding in a new adult rodent model, suggesting that the capabilities of optogenetics might be applied to improve cochlear implants in the future.