Doctor from the Netherlands created a vestibular implant model at TSU

TOMSK, Oct 19 – RIA Tomsk. Raymond van de Berg, head of the ENT department at Maastricht University Hospital in the Netherlands, has defended his doctoral thesis on vestibular biophysics at Tomsk State University (TSU); the thesis resulted in a vestibular implant model, the TSU press service reported on Tuesday.

According to the university, foreign researchers are increasingly choosing TSU as a platform to defend their degrees. For instance, scientists from India, Rwanda, Algeria, the Netherlands and other countries have recently defended their theses in TSU's dissertation councils.

"The head of the ENT department at Maastricht University Hospital (the Netherlands) Raymond van de Berg defended his doctoral thesis at Tomsk State University <...>. The result of his research <...> conducted under the supervision of Professor Vladimir Demkin of the Faculty of Physics of Tomsk State University and Professor Herman Kingma of Maastricht University is a complex physical and mathematical model of the vestibular implant", – the statement reads.

According to the press service, the implant helps optimize the work of the vestibular prosthesis needed to restore orientation in space, maintain balance and stabilize the gaze.

"Right now, for the 30 million people in the world who have lost vestibular function, there is no effective therapeutic treatment. Vestibular function can often only be restored by implanting an artificial vestibular organ. However, the vestibular implant designs available today are still far from perfect..." – Demkin is quoted in the release.