"Once you have taken away your vision and you are standing on an unstable surface, your vestibularsystem has to work harder to maintain balance, " he says.
This wouldn't be able to replicate the function of the vestibularsystem, but it could act like a pacemaker for people who have attacks that make the vestibularsystem go haywire, like sufferers of Meniere's disease.
He successfully implanted his device in normal rhesus monkeys without disturbing their hearing or sense of balance, and he was able to spark the vestibularsystem so that the monkeys' eyes moved as if they were spinning.