The cochlear implant is the first neural prosthesis to achieve the technical success necessary for widespread clinical application. It provides the only effective therapy for restoring sound sensation and speech understanding to the profoundly deaf. Over the past 20 years dramatic improvements in patients' performance with these devices have been achieved. Currently the average speech understanding score for implanted adults is between 80-100% correct. These advances have derived substantially from the collective efforts of researchers in a broad array of scientific disciplines. This close collaboration and cooperation has been fostered in large part through a series of biennial research conferences, originating with the 1983 Gordon Research Conference on Implantable Auditory Prostheses. These conferences are the only forum in which implant research issues are the sole focus. The two 'new' developments since the last (1999) meeting are binaural implants and combined electric and acoustic hearing. Both developments will be discussed at length in the 2001 meeting. Binaural implants allow the possibility of better hearing in noise and localization of sound sources (a significant safety issue for implant patients). Combined acoustic (low frequency) and electric (high frequency) hearing is a reality for a small number of patients. The health related and economic consequences of a successful hybrid technology would be enormous. In addition to these topics we will continue to examine the latest research on (1) the effects of deprivation and stimulation on the development and plasticity of the auditory system (including data from human infants), (2) the underlying bases for language acquisition in children fit with implants, (3) the factors underlying channel and electrical interactions in the cochlea, (4) the coding of speech in the auditory periphery and more centrally (including data from cortical multielectrode arrays and functional brain imaging), (5) the development of new electrode arrays and (6) the development of new signal processing strategies for speech coding. In sum, the conference will continue the tradition of combining information from a wide range of disciplines in an effort to better understand electrical stimulation of the cochlea and to improve the performance of patients fit with cochlear implants. This application seeks partial support for this conference, scheduled at the Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, CA on August 19-23, 2001.
