Hearing Health Blog
Activity by special neurons called unipolar brush cells reveals that they may introduce delays or increase the length of firing responses, and presumably extend vestibular sensory representations.
As we jump into 2024, a leap year with an extra day in February, we want to extend our warmest wishes for a year filled with health, happiness, and the sounds of joy.
The sensory organs that allow us to walk, dance, and turn our heads without dizziness or loss of balance contain specialized synapses that process signals faster than any other in the human body.
When a family member received a diagnosis of diabetes more than seven years ago, as an audiologist I tried to find information related to hearing problems associated with diabetes. I realized few people knew about the research connecting hearing loss and balance issues to this chronic disease.
Most activities of daily living require us to do two or more things at the same time, especially motor tasks (walking, standing, moving) with some form of a cognitive task (navigating, talking, decision-making). But it is not yet entirely clear what happens to balance performance in healthy individuals when they are also performing a cognitive task.
During my third year at University of Michigan, where I was studying biochemistry and French, I became aware of an unfamiliar, jarring sensation—extreme dizziness. If I closed my eyes for just a little bit, I’d feel my surroundings spinning. It was around the same time I recognized my difficulties hearing in large lecture halls.
Fall risk in people with hearing loss has been shown in older adults, and our pilot data suggest balance impairments in people with single-sided hearing are more likely to arise in older participants with moderate dizziness.
We investigated two different virtual reality paradigms in an attempt to shed light on the mechanisms underlying persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (PPPD). The results of this research highlight the value of virtual reality usage and provide a basis for further investigations.
Aging actively is more than a phrase. It’s about extending healthy life expectancy and quality of life for all people as they age. We all know that connecting to one another and our physical world is absolutely vital in preserving our wellbeing, so as we think of our five senses, many would agree that hearing plays an important role in maintaining our quality of life.
I am an associate professor at Oregon Health & Science University and became interested in the fields of hearing research, biomedical engineering, and neuroscience in part from my own hearing loss. I have had severe to profound hearing loss since early childhood, diagnosed at 2 ½ years old. Fitted with powerful hearing aids, I learned to speak and listen only with intensive speech therapy. I am the only person with a hearing loss in my family, so we always thought the cause was due to illness or possibly ototoxic drugs.
