Dr. Wim Melis from the University of Greenwich is working on deconstructing and reconstructing audio signals with extremely high accuracy.

Audio is captured and, from there, converted into a spiking signal—the type the brain uses. This is then fed into the brain and reconstructed as a 90–100 percent replica of the original sound.

Current technologies, known as cochlear implants, only achieve a fraction of this. They do the work of damaged parts of the inner ear (cochlea) to provide sound signals to the brain, whereas hearing aids make sounds louder.