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
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.
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.
Hearing Aid Use Improves Brain Processing Over Time
The brain adjusts quickly to amplified sound—that’s a good thing. But the brain’s ability to fully interpret amplified signals in a meaningful way requires a longer period of time. The typical hearing aid trial period is 30 days, so the hearing aid user may not be experiencing the full benefits of amplification at the end of that period.
Clues to How the Auditory Cortex Controls Subcortical Circuits
Our results may provide broadly generalizable insight into how the mammalian brain dynamically processes incoming sensory information.
A Multimodal Cell Census and Atlas of the Mammalian Primary Motor Cortex
In a paper published in Nature in October 2021, scientists including Ronna Hertzano, M.D., Ph.D., and Seth Ament, Ph.D., both at the University of Maryland and both members of Hearing Health Foundation’s Hearing Restoration Project, present the cell census and atlas of cell types in the primary motor cortex of the mouse, marmoset, and human.
Hearing Speech Requires Quiet – In More Ways Than One
Perceiving speech requires quieting certain types of brain cells, report a team of researchers from UConn Health and University of Rochester in the Journal of Neurophysiology. Their research reveals a previously unknown population of brain cells, and opens up a new way of understanding how the brain hears.