Hearing Health Blog Archive
The avian inner ear can naturally regenerate sensory hair cells and is therefore an ideal candidate for investigating mechanisms leading to hair cell regeneration and functional recovery.
This newly graduated high school student who wears a cochlear implant is making plans to pay it forward.
We found consistent evidence that auditory nerve function worsens with age, but the impact of noise exposure was less clear and seemed to depend on the specifics of each study.
These experiences highlight the need for patients, especially women, to advocate for accurate diagnoses.
Specifically, healthy brains hum with this frequency, which in turn activates many functions central to mental sharpness
The inventor of today’s recording techniques—with multiple ways to manipulate sound—would have been 109 this June 9. That would be Les Paul, the man whose signature is blazoned on the famous Gibson guitar.
Even with this elevated awareness about the harm from excess noise, sometimes it’s hard to get this message to stick at home. Here is how I helped steer my kids, who are now teenagers, steer toward healthy hearing habits.
One dear friend and Native Elder was very hard of hearing. When I visited him we would be yelling at each other and having a good laugh.
Alongside the typical checklist for camp preparations, such as bug spray and sunscreen, consider preparing for scenarios where your child may need to speak up about communication needs and otherwise self-advocate so they can fully participate.
While individual neurons in the auditory midbrain may not accurately convey information about sound features, the collective activity of these neurons accurately represents sounds.
I’ve been collecting these anecdotes that I hope help those of us living with hearing loss to remember that laughter can be the best medicine
Babies are too young to do hearing tests until 8 to 10 months of age, and at such young ages, tracking brain waves to sounds is the only reliable way to assess hearing.
My hearing loss was defined as “moderately severe, sloping upward to mild”—which basically means I don’t hear at all at the exact frequencies of my husband’s voice.
The causes behind residual hearing loss following cochlear implantation are complex and varied. Studies such as this one provide clues as to what to focus on in order to improve the acoustic experience of cochlear implant recipients.
How I came to understand that having a hearing loss made me a super reader of nonverbal cues.
I currently work with a mouse model with hearing fluctuation and have a clinical protocol that is performing deep phenotyping of patients with hearing instability, including patients with Ménière’s disease.
We have been heartened by the increased mainstream media coverage of healthy hearing lately.
The road to more effective, less invasive, and faster developing treatments for tinnitus and loudness hyperacusis lies in focusing on the brain and not the ear.
Let’s push back against the idea of a “loss” or “impairment” when it comes to hearing.
This suggests that birds maintain a precise program for hair cell regeneration that preserves frequency-specific nerve connections, which is an important aspect of proper functional recovery.
Our son with a hearing loss opened up our family’s world and made us all stronger.
Perhaps most of all, the message of enjoying responsibly is one we really try to impart.
Of relevance to hyperacusis, prior noise-induced hearing loss leads to the generation of prolonged and repetitive activity in type II neurons and surrounding tissues. This aberrant signaling may be the basis for the sensitivity to everyday sounds seen in hyperacusis.
These findings suggest that the auditory cortex may transmit significant non-auditory signals relevant for learning-related plasticity.
“Lacking social connection is as dangerous as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day,” according to a U.S. Surgeon General report.
As a result, increased prefrontal activity may be helpful in improving gating function (automatic filtering), a topic for future research.
Our independent analysis of the clinical trials’ published data yields the following insights on gene therapy for hearing loss from otoferlin variants. The clinical trials provide the first validation of pharmacological treatments for hearing loss.
These details gleaned from this regenerative process in the mouse organoid provides insights into how mammalian supporting cells could be reprogrammed into hair cells.
A Berklee-bound student shares: Yes, I’m hard of hearing. Yes, I’m a musician. We exist.