Feature Channels: Hearing

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Using data from brain imaging techniques that enable visualising the brain’s activity, a neuroscientist at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and a Parisian ENT surgeon have managed to decipher brain reorganisation processes at work when people start to lose their hearing, and thus predict the success or failure of a cochlear implant among people who have become profoundly deaf in their adult life. The results of this research may be found in Nature Communications.

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It may be possible to predict the severity of hearing loss for children diagnosed with enlarged vestibular aqueduct, according to a new study published in JAMA-Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.

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More than half of older adults have some form of hearing loss, impacting everyday life and significantly affecting their health and safety if left untreated. Hearing aids are the most common treatment for hearing loss; however, many adults fail to adjust to hearing aids and, as a result, stop using them. Now, a new hearing aid adjustment program created by Kari Lane, assistant professor in the Sinclair School of Nursing at the University of Missouri, might significantly improve hearing aid wear time among older adults.

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Researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health, have identified the genetic underpinnings of a rare disorder that causes children to be born with deafness, blindness, albinism and fragile bones.

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Ms. Jones brings more than two decades of fundraising experience to JTC.

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In 2013, Mass. Eye and Ear researchers restored partial hearing to mice by regenerating hair cells — tiny, sound-sensing cells in the ear, which are lost through noise damage, age, etc., and do not regenerate on their own — by converting stem cells found in the ear into hair cells. However, the success of restoring hearing through this approach was limited by the small number of cells that could be turned into hair cells. In a new study in Cell Reports, a research team from Mass. Eye and Ear, Brigham and Women's Hospital and MIT has shown that they can augment the number of those cells, and then convert that large population into hair cells, lending hope that full hearing can be restored to those with hearing loss due to damaged hair cells.

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Some people can pass a hearing test but have trouble understanding speech in a noisy environment. New research identifies a new mechanism for this condition just years after its discovery.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that preemies in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) may be exposed to noise levels higher than those deemed safe by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Conversely, the researchers also found that some preemies may not get enough exposure to beneficial sounds, such as language and music, that can improve early development.

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In the summer of 2015, a team at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School reported restoring rudimentary hearing in genetically deaf mice using gene therapy. Now the Boston Children’s research team reports restoring a much higher level of hearing — down to 25 decibels, the equivalent of a whisper — using an improved gene therapy vector developed at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. The new vector and the mouse studies are described in two back-to-back papers in Nature Biotechnology (published online February 6).

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Learning of her daughter’s hearing loss set this mother on a journey half way across the globe to John Tracy Clinic to receive help for her child. Her experiences inspired her to help change the way treatment is handled in her home country of India.

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In a landmark trial, researchers have demonstrated that when treating children between 9 and 23 months of age with antibiotics for ear infections, a shortened course has worse clinical outcomes without reducing the risk of antibiotic resistance or adverse events.

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Tracy Lindstrom didn't let any obstacles stand in the way of earning her doctor of nursing practice degree at Wichita State University. Lindstrom recently became the first student with a hearing impairment to graduate from WSU with a doctoral degree.

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Even short-term blockages in hearing can lead to remarkable changes in the auditory system, altering the behavior and structure of nerve cells that relay information from the ear to the brain, according to a new University at Buffalo study.

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Audio will be available for an exhibit at UIC

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Julia Conkin's hearing was so poor she needed to use sign language to communicate. Then she received a cochlear implant at Loyola Medicine, and the results were spectacular. "I could hear things I had not heard for years, like music and conversations at gatherings,” she said. “It was beautiful to hear other people.”

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A study of patient electronic medical records and genome sequences from adults with age-related hearing impairment by researchers at UC San Francisco and Kaiser Permanente Northern California, identified two genetic variations linked to the hearing disorder.

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Hearing loss is a marginalizing and disabling condition, resulting in various adverse social and health outcomes. Babies born to women with hearing loss were significantly more likely to be premature and have low birth weight, according to a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Understanding and addressing the causes are critical to improving pregnancy outcomes among women with hearing loss, say investigators.

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Among the new research to be presented Wednesday at the 2016 Annual Meeting & OTO EXPO℠ of the American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) in San Diego, CA, are several studies about hearing and ear health in children. The studies touch on hearing loss after ear tubes, iPhone otoscope app use by parents, and disparities in cochlear implantation across five different states—including California.

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Research to be presented tomorrow at the 2016 Annual Meeting & OTO EXPOSM of the American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) spans the otolaryngology specialty. Highlighted research below touches on topics ranging from halitosis, rhinoplasty, and transgender vocal cord surgery to thyroid surgery and hearing aid use.

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Physicians Sound Off about the Latest ENT Research during Otolaryngology’s Annual Meeting

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Ana Placencia stretched in bed after waking up one Saturday morning, when suddenly the hearing in her left ear became muffled.

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Many regions of the world today still lack ready access to audiology, auditory-verbal therapy and educational support services for young children with hearing loss and their families. JTC’s International Summer Sessions help to address the service gap.

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A team of New York-based researchers has compared the effects of two disease-causing mutations, potentially explaining why patients with the rare genetic disorder keratitis-ichthyosis-deafness (KID) syndrome can experience different sets of symptoms. The study, “Syndromic deafness mutations at Asn 14 differentially alter open stability of Cx26 hemichannels,” will be published online June 27 in The Journal of General Physiology.

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Swimming is synonymous with summer. But more time in water can lead to a painful infection of the external ear canal called swimmer’s ear. Here's how to prevent and treat it.

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Research has found that hearing loss has wide-ranging impacts not only on older people's ability to communicate, but also on their ability to move about and participate in different hobbies and activities. This has been revealed in studies funded by the Academy of Finland whose results have been published in international scientific journals.

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New research into the ringing-ear condition known as tinnitus indicates an alarming level of early, permanent hearing damage in young people who are exposed to loud music, prompting a warning from a leading Canadian researcher in the field.

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Owls exposed to noise equivalent to that of a natural gas compressor station experienced an 8 percent drop in hunting success per decibel increase in noise.

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Older Americans with some hearing loss shouldn’t feel alone if they have trouble understanding British TV sagas like “Downton Abbey.” A small study from the University of Utah suggests hearing-impaired senior citizens have more trouble than young people comprehending British accents when there is background noise.

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Depressed Moms Not ‘in Sync’ with Their Kids, Children with ADHD Sleep Both Poorly and Less, Yeast Infection Linked to Mental Illness, and more in the Mental Health News Source

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Pinellas County a Model for Mosquito-Borne Disease Surveillance, Scientists Unravel the Genetic Evolution of Zika Virus, Worm Infection Counters Inflammatory Bowel Disease and more in the Infectious Diseases News Source

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A new study published in Nature Chemical Biology reports the first small molecule targeted therapy for progressive hearing loss in a mouse model of USH3, an USH classified by progressive loss of hearing and vision starting in the first few decades of life along with variable balance disorder.

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Hearing socially meaningful sounds can change the ear and enable it to better detect those sounds, according to researchers at Georgia State University who studied the phenomenon in green treefrogs.

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A study conducted by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center found that older adults who used a hearing aid performed significantly better on cognitive tests than those who did not use a hearing aid, despite having poorer hearing.

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Hearing loss is the third most common chronic illness for older adults. It can impact everyday life and can significantly affect a person’s health and safety if gone untreated. Hearing aids are the most common treatment for hearing loss. However, in 2005 more than 325,000 hearing aids, less than four years old were unused according to a previous study in the Hearing Journal. Now, a new hearing aid adjustment program created by Kari Lane, assistant professor at the Sinclair School of Nursing at the University of Missouri, may help increase hearing aid use for those who need them.

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In a small clinical study with an anticancer drug that halts blood vessel growth, a handful of people with neurofibromatosis type 2 (NF2) and hearing loss had restoration of hearing.

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For humans to understand speech and for other animals to know each other’s calls, the brain must distinguish short sounds from longer sounds. By studying frogs, University of Utah researchers figured out how certain brain cells compute the length of sounds and detect short ones.

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An enhanced diet helped reduce hearing loss in mice with the genetic mutation most commonly responsible for childhood deafness.

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Columbia’s Cochlear Implant Music Engineering Group are trying to reengineer and simplify music to be more enjoyable for listeners with cochlear implants.

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A team of researchers at the University of Connecticut is reexamining a decades-long debate as to whether deaf children should learn sign language to maximize their potential for optimal development.

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John Tracy Clinic (JTC), a non-profit diagnostic and education center for young children with hearing loss, announced today the launch of their new “Parent Toddler Discovery Program.” Taking place from July 10 – 15, 2016, the new program will be available as part of this year’s JTC Summer Sessions schedule.

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A recent study by Jamie Desjardins, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the speech-language pathology program at The University of Texas at El Paso, found that hearing aids improve brain function in persons with hearing loss.

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A new study at Massachusetts Eye and Ear showed that in some cases of vestibular schwannoma, a sometimes-lethal tumor often associated with neurofibromatosis 2 (NF2), secretions from the tumor contain toxic molecules that damage the inner ear. The findings, published online in Scientific Reports, explain why some vestibular schwannomas cause hearing loss even though they are not large enough to compress nearby structures that control hearing.

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Northwestern pediatric audiologist Jennifer Phelan can comment on whether parents should buy volume-reducing headphones for their kids. Phelan specializes in the evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of hearing loss in children. She has a particular interest in serving people with special needs.

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Jami Fisher, a lecturer in the University of Pennsylvania's Department of Linguistics, has a long history with American Sign Language. Both of her parents and her brother are deaf, she's Penn's ASL Program coordinator and now, with Meredith Tamminga, an assistant professor in Linguistics and director of the University's Language Variation and Cognition Lab, she's working on a project to document what they're calling the Philadelphia accent of this language.