Toddler who was born deaf could hear thanks to brain stem implant

A toddler who was born deaf might eventually be able to hear for the first time, assuming all goes well with the surgical procedure that implanted a device on the boy’s brain stem. After all, this is considered to be the next step up just in case a cochlear implant fails to work. The entire operation took approximately half a dozen hours to complete, where surgeons at the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles ended up inserting this device successfully in the boy’s brain stem.

After a roughly six-hour operation, surgeons at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have successfully inserted a device in the brain stem of a deaf 3-year-old boy in the hope that it will help him to hear. The operation, the first in a clinical trial supported by the National Institutes of Health, could help set a precedent for the safety and efficacy of a surgery that has been performed for years abroad but is considered risky by some in the U.S. It is being led by researchers from the House Clinic in Los Angeles and USC. “This is a great relief,” said Auguste Majkowski’s mother, Sophie Gareau, shortly after the surgery on Tuesday. Gareau, who traveled from Montreal for the procedure, wept after hearing from one of the doctors that her son’s operation went well.