The new hearing aid is the denture

Because we hear less and less, there is a growing need for good hearing aids. Chinese scientists believe they have found the ideal solution: dentures. They discovered that artificial teeth are excellent sound emitters. For example, your next hearing aid might be in your mouth.

We already knew that your teeth and jaws transmit sound very well. The US military already communicates this way. But for this you need to put a device in your mouth. But those who already have room in their teeth can also do things differently, with an artificial tooth.

Researchers at Tongji University in Shanghai have created a prosthetic tooth that picks up ambient sound and transmits it in an amplified way. The vibrations of the tooth pass through the jaw to the auditory center and arrive there amplified. The new invention has been tested on 38 people and works perfectly and is invisible.

The vibrations go directly to the auditory nerve. As a result, the hearing aid works better than ordinary models. In terms of quality, it is comparable to an implant in the skull. This method works best when people install it in front of their teeth, the researchers write in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.