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.
Putting the Brakes on Hyperactivity in the Brain
Understanding Pain Signals Triggered by Damage to the Inner Ear
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.
Surprising Role of Auditory Neurons in Learning Revealed by Study in Mice
These findings suggest that the auditory cortex may transmit significant non-auditory signals relevant for learning-related plasticity.
How Neurons in the Brain Coordinate Movement and Prevent Falls
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.
Changes in the Brain with Age and Hearing Loss
A better understanding of how our brains process patterns with aging and hearing loss, and when neural responses are exaggerated versus diminished, can aid in developing treatments and devices to improve age- and hearing loss-related hearing difficulties.
Insights Into Sound Processing in the Brain
The central auditory system is classically thought of as an ascending system, where acoustic information is processed across a step-by-step hierarchy of increasingly complex circuits. However, this model is simplistic because we know that higher order brain regions such as the auditory cortex also send descending projections back to “lower” circuits.
In Autism Spectrum Disorder, Brain Connections Vary When Processing Speech
These findings suggest that in ASD, the mechanisms involved in processing speech, which encompass both the cerebrum and cerebellum, are influenced by atypical attention patterns, possibly stemming from differences in how the cerebellum manages timing and predicts auditory events.
Adventures and Revelations From Getting Hearing Aids
Contemporary hearing aids are virtually invisible, and since everyone has things sticking in and around their ears these days, it’s a non-event.
Brain Health in the News
The better question may be, do hearing aids reduce dementia, or does dementia reduce hearing aid use? This is the title of a May 2023 Hearing Journal paper.
Brain Connectivity Patterns in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder had different patterns of brain connectivity between areas involved in speech processing, particularly in the parietal region, which is important for combining different sounds into speech objects.