Neural Activity Shaping for Retinal and Cochlear Implants. This project aims to develop methods to control and optimise the spatial patterns of neural activity evoked by neural prostheses in order to improve the resolution of neuroprostheses. A major problem for neural prostheses is that the electrical current used to stimulate neurons causes a diffuse spread of activity in the neural tissue, which limits the resolution of the device. For patients this translates into limitations in sound qualit ....Neural Activity Shaping for Retinal and Cochlear Implants. This project aims to develop methods to control and optimise the spatial patterns of neural activity evoked by neural prostheses in order to improve the resolution of neuroprostheses. A major problem for neural prostheses is that the electrical current used to stimulate neurons causes a diffuse spread of activity in the neural tissue, which limits the resolution of the device. For patients this translates into limitations in sound quality, in the case of cochlea implants, or visual acuity, for retinal implants. The outcome of the project will be algorithms that optimally choose the currents on each electrode so as to shape neural activity at the finer resolution of electrode spacing rather than the coarser resolution of current spread.Read moreRead less
Individualized cochlear implant sound coding: Optimized algorithms for better hearing. One in six Australians is affected by hearing loss. Hearing loss impacts on a person's educational and employment opportunities, resulting in a significant economic impact upon Australia. Over 10% of people with hearing impairment have a severe or profound hearing loss and may be candidates for a cochlear implant. Current cochlear implant sound processing only offers limited benefit to users. This project repr ....Individualized cochlear implant sound coding: Optimized algorithms for better hearing. One in six Australians is affected by hearing loss. Hearing loss impacts on a person's educational and employment opportunities, resulting in a significant economic impact upon Australia. Over 10% of people with hearing impairment have a severe or profound hearing loss and may be candidates for a cochlear implant. Current cochlear implant sound processing only offers limited benefit to users. This project represents a truly innovative pathway forward in the development of cochlear implant sound coding that could substantially increase the speech perception of users, enabling these people to become and remain active and productive members of our community.Read moreRead less
Computational neural modelling of bottom-up information and top-down attention in auditory perception. The aim of this project is to gain a better understanding of the ways in which our auditory cortex functions. This project will make a significant contribution to this important and fundamental aspect of brain science and brain-inspired computation. The outcome will be to build a computational model of the auditory cortex, through simulation of the detailed neuronal responses using spiking neur ....Computational neural modelling of bottom-up information and top-down attention in auditory perception. The aim of this project is to gain a better understanding of the ways in which our auditory cortex functions. This project will make a significant contribution to this important and fundamental aspect of brain science and brain-inspired computation. The outcome will be to build a computational model of the auditory cortex, through simulation of the detailed neuronal responses using spiking neurons. Applications will develop improved processing strategies for automatic speech recognition, hearing aids, bionic ears (cochlear implants), robotics and other machine processing systems.Read moreRead less