ÜDS-Sağlık 2009-2 Soru=52

The passage makes clear that cochlear implants

The brain's capacity for finding new informationprocessing
pathways is thought to explain the success
of artificial cochleas, which have been implanted in the
ears of approximately 100,000 hearing-impaired people
around the world. They typically have an array of
electrodes, each of which channels electrical signals
toward the auditory nerve. The electrodes can stimulate
not just a single neuron in the brain but many
simultaneously. When cochlear implants first appeared
in the 1980s, many neuroscientists expected them to
work poorly, given their primitive design. But the devices
work well enough for some deaf people to converse
over the telephone, particularly after an adjustment
period during which channel settings are fine-tuned to
provide the best reception. Patients' brains somehow
figure out how to make the most out of the strange
signals. The surprising effectiveness of artificial
cochleas - together with other evidence of the brain's
adaptability - has fuelled optimism about the prospects
for brain/machine substitution. A case in point is an
ongoing project at the University of Southern California
that seeks to create implantable brain chips that can
restore or enhance memory.