The Neurophone: Hear Without Your Ears
There’s an interesting device out there that not many people have heard of. It’s called the Neurophone and allows sounds to be perceived in the brain yet bypasses the ears. Among other applications, it can provide the deaf with an even more rich and stimulating means to experience sound.
Normally hearing takes place when vibrations in the inner ear are converted into electrical nerve signals and transmitted to the brain. But with the Neurophone, ultrasonic electrical signals can be transmitted to the brain via the skin. It turns out that ‘hearing with the skin’ has many advantages over hearing with the ears. For one, the neurophone is claimed to greatly reduce the element of distraction normally experienced when sounds register in the ears. It has also been reported to increase concentration and the ability to remember what is heard, making it a useful tool for learning languages or listening to audio books. The most interesting part, however, is that regular use of the device leads to the development of neural pathways associated with perceiving ultrasonic sounds. The development of these neural pathways, in turn, leads to harmonization between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and imparts the listener with a greater sense of well being and resistance to stress.
The Neurophone was invented in theory by a young man named Flanagan at the age of 14. At 17 he was named one of the top ten scientists in the US by LIFE magazine. Although he encountered a lot of opposition, after 10 years he was finally granted a patent when he demonstrated the effectiveness of his invention on a deaf worker in the patent headquarters in 1968 (#3,393,279). Since then it has undergone many innovations and now it even available online
