Description
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is seeking proposals for the development of a new kind of hearing-assistive platform that directly engages the brain's hearing centers to improve how people hear in complex, real-world environments. The platform, called HEARING, will be a closed-loop system that reads activity from the auditory cortex, uses it to control sound entering the ear in real time, and writes back missing information through targeted stimulation. The program is organized into three technical areas: TA1, which focuses on the development of minimally invasive neural interfaces; TA2, which focuses on the development of an external wearable device; and TA3, which focuses on the development of algorithms for decoding and encoding auditory information. Proposers must address all three technical areas and provide a detailed plan for the development and testing of the HEARING platform.
Some key points to consider:
• The HEARING platform must be able to adjust sound based on the listener's focus, reduce background noise in real time, and fill in missing sound information to restore close to normal hearing for people with mild to severe hearing loss.
• The platform must be minimally invasive and suitable for chronic use.
• Proposers must provide a detailed plan for the development and testing of the HEARING platform, including metrics for evaluating its effectiveness.
• The program is best suited for teams that can address the full system and avoid the development of orphaned technologies that are not compatible with a complete platform.
Attached files
Contact
ARPA-H HEARING TEAM