Will Research on Chickens Provide a Solution to Needing Hearing Aids?

By Aaron Rodriques

Researchers hope to develop hearing loss treatments by studying the regenerative capabilities inner ear cells in chickens. We discovered some interesting info on these little guys and hearing aids. 

An Alternative to Hearing Aids

Scientists are on the path of a new application that could provide a unique alternative to hearing aids. By studying hair cells found in the inner ears of chickens, researchers are in the process of creating treatments that cure hearing loss in humans, minimizing the demand for hearing aids in the future.

Chickens can regenerate inner ear cells that replace cells damaged from noise and other forms of physical trauma. All vertebrates except mammals can exhibit this phenomenon. 

"The key to restoring hearing in humans is to regenerate cells deep within the inner ear," said Shari Eberts, chairwoman of the board of directors of the Hearing Health Foundation, which is funding the research. "While humans cannot regenerate hair cells in the inner ear after they are damaged, chickens can. In fact, most animals other than mammals can regenerate these delicate cells, restoring their hearing spontaneously after damage."

Hearing Aids and the Hearing Restoration Project

The Hearing Restoration Project (HRP) involves researchers from more than 10 institutions including Harvard Medical School, who are studying chickens in order to find out how humans could possibly regenerate inner ear cells. 

Approximately 36 million adults in the U.S. have some kind of hearing loss, and 25 million have tinnitus, according to the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. The Hearing Health Foundation aims to manufacture a cure by 2024.

According to Eberts, researchers are studying fish and mice as well. Fish can regenerate hair cells like chickens, but mice cannot.

"By analyzing what genes allow for regeneration in fish and chickens, we can compare those to mouse genes to see where the differences occur," she said. "Once we have an understanding of what genes and sets of genes (known as pathways) play a role in allowing for regeneration in fish and chickens, and which inhibit regeneration in mice, we will have a clearer understanding of how to trigger regeneration in humans."

Animal Biology and Hearing Aid Design

Similar studies with different animal species have found them to have unique hearing capabilities that offer promising new innovations for hearing aid technology. This includes the impressive hearing abilities of the Greater Wax Moth, a tiny insect found in beehives, and the unique anatomy of the locust. Hearing aids based on structures found in nature are considered to have a “biomimetic design.”

This article was republished with permission from Audicus.

Can Plants Hear?

By Yishane Lee

As a friend of HHF, you are no doubt well aware that chicks, fish, and reptiles have the ability to regenerate their inner ear hair cells, an ability that means any damage to their hearing is corrected.

Mammals, including humans, cannot, and this is the core of what HHF’s Hearing Restoration Project is working to solve within the next decade—how we can translate the chick’s ability to regrow hair cells to humans, and as a result find a biologic cure for hearing loss and tinnitus.

Now comes news that it is not just the animal world that can hear. Plants can, too. A recent story by Michael Pollan in the New Yorker included this paragraph (italics mine):

“Plants have evolved between 15 and 20 distinct senses, including analogues of our five: smell and taste (they sense and respond to chemicals in the air or on their bodies); sight (they react differently to various wavelengths of light as well as to shadow); touch (a vine or a root ‘knows’ when it encounters a solid object); and, it has been discovered, sound. In a recent experiment, Heidi Appel, a chemical ecologist at the University of Missouri, found that, when she played a recording of a caterpillar chomping a leaf for a plant that hadn’t been touched, the sound primed the plant’s genetic machinery to produce defense chemicals. Another experiment, done in [Italian plant physiologist Stefano] Mancuso’s lab and not yet published, found that plant roots would seek out a buried pipe through which water was flowing even if the exterior of the pipe was dry, which suggested that plants somehow ‘hear’ the sound of flowing water.”

I find this absolutely fascinating. Could it be the plants “hear” via sensing sound vibrations—just like we do? And then they’re able to correctly correlate these vibrations to the category of friend or foe—again, just like we do? To hear the plant biologists in the story put it: Yes, it’s entirely possible, and even likely.

The article raises interesting issues of why animal-based biology deserves primacy, and whether a typical (animal) brain is needed for something to be considered intelligent. In addition to reading the piece, which I highly encourage you to do, there is a TED Talk by Mancuso, if you want to learn more.

We can learn much from plants. The promise of the Hearing Restoration Project is that we can also learn much from chicks, fish, and reptiles. Indeed, there has been early success with hair cell regeneration in mice.

Support the search for a cure for hearing loss and tinnitus within a decade.

Working With Hearing Loss

By Yishane Lee

Hearing Helath magazine staff writer Kathi Mestayer has written two articles about issues of workplace noise—how to take steps to take to protect your hearing if your workplace is noisy, and how to cope at work if you have a hearing loss. In response, we received an email from Eric Schwartz, of Atlanta. He has a hearing loss and, with help of a fellow colleague who also has a hearing loss, contributed a question-and-answer column to his consulting firm’s in-house newsletter.

It is interesting to read as it tackles the issue of hearing loss at the workplace from two different perspectives. “Jackie Fitzgerald and I met at an internal North Highland training session and bonded instantly when we both realized we were wearing hearing aids,” says Schwartz. “We have very different perspectives because of our respective genders and the fact that I was born with my hearing loss and Jackie’s hearing loss came as an adult, due to otosclerosis, a disease of the bones of the inner ear.”

Here are excerpts from the article.

What is your biggest challenge?

Jackie: With the slow onset of my hearing loss, my biggest challenge has been truly grasping the extent of how much I really have lost over the years. Recently the need to “fill in” what I missed in a conversation has become more necessary. At times this filling in has led to misunderstandings or an inadvertent change in topic. One example is when I have missed one simple word like “not”—which has happened on more than one occasion with my husband, and as you can imagine has caused some heated conversation before we realize I missed that simple little word. So for me, the challenge is also realizing I need to make adjustments, including asking someone to repeat themselves, which can be difficult to do.

Eric: My challenge is just trying to appear “normal” in a world in which spoken communication is very important. I think people sometimes assume I am stupid or am choosing to ignore them, and they are judging me based on that rather than recognizing that I have a hearing loss. The hardest situations for me include whispering, interpreting foreign accents, trying to hear in a lot of background noise, watching television with no subtitles, and listening to pitched voices that are outside of my hearing range. Hearing aids help quite a bit, but there are times when I can’t wear them such as while doing sports, taking a shower, etc. People don’t always know when I don’t have them in, although I try and wear them whenever I am awake. Just dealing with the embarrassment of not hearing and being afraid to ask people to repeat what they said is something I struggle with as well. I do have to admit that I’m somewhat self-conscious about the hearing aids, particularly when a small child points to them and asks their parents, “What does that man have in his ear?”  

It’s more of a challenge in my personal life than my professional life because the context is so much more straightforward at work. I’ve grown very accustomed to filling in the blanks and making educated guesses at what people are saying, to the extent that I don’t even realize I’m doing it. My wife hates it when I guess wrong—she’d much rather I clarify then guess, but it’s hard because I don’t even realize I’m doing it. I do agree that a sense of humor can be very helpful in coping with this, and any, situation.

What have you learned?

Jackie: I have learned that due to my loss I have become a bit paranoid. My loss is always “there” and it is something I worry about in the back of my mind. Do I have batteries for my aids on hand? Will my hearing aids “go out” during an important meeting? How will I effectively facilitate the next breakout session in this noisy room? Will I be able to hear the conversation at the end of a table? I have learned that one of the keys to limiting the problems is to plan ahead, always have batteries on hand, sit close to the speakers, and to find quieter locations for conversation. Also for the most part people are intrigued and truly interested in the loss when I share it with them, so when appropriate, I always make sure others are aware of my loss to help minimize any misunderstandings. But most importantly, I have learned the value of a sense of humor. For those who know me, they know I love to laugh, so using this trait has become invaluable when misunderstandings have occurred.

Eric: Most people are compassionate and want to help and I need to do a better job of explaining my hearing loss to people. In addition, I have learned that I really have to concentrate and pay much more attention to what people aren’t saying, such as through body language. Lastly, I have an opportunity to teach people about this and help people who experience the onset of a hearing loss later in life.

What are you grateful for?

Jackie: I’m most grateful for two things: technology and a spouse who is very patient. The new technology around hearing is incredible, and without it I couldn’t do the work I love—listening and helping clients. But even with all the wonders of technology, I still miss things and when I think about all the times my husband has answered the question, “What did they say?” during a movie, without getting annoyed, I am truly amazed. When we met I didn’t have a loss and he has really been a wonderful supporter. Recently he has begun to lose some hearing and I caught myself getting frustrated with him—which really brought to light just how wonderful he has been over the past 20 years.

Eric: Hearing aid technology is amazing. It’s more expensive than I’d like and it’s not always covered by insurance, but even that is changing. I’m also grateful for my other senses and the hearing that I do have. Being hearing impaired is a small handicap compared with being completely deaf. I’m grateful that I have been able to compensate and adjust and it hasn’t had an overly negative impact on my life. It also seems as if my hearing loss has heightened my other senses and abilities in terms of my sense of smell and sight and my ability to observe and remember.

What would be a key takeaway for colleagues?

Jackie: I am generally filling in close to 20 percent of a conversation based on context and body language. Over the course of the day that can be exhausting. So if I completely change topics or appear to go in a different direction, please don’t be afraid to make sure I heard what was intended, versus what I appear to have understood. There is a big difference—I can only understand if I heard it correctly! Also, during a presentation, for the 10 percent of the population with a hearing loss, listening while also trying to read information is extremely challenging. I personally have to completely concentrate to hear a presenter, so presenting slides quickly and which are not aligned to what the speaker is saying can be very frustrating. Most importantly if you think you might have a hearing loss, take it seriously. You don’t know what you are missing—which can be a lot.

Eric: Please be patient and do your best to make sure I can see your lips when we are talking. If I don’t appear to understand you, please assume I didn’t hear you or fully understand you—I am probably not ignoring you. Also, if you see me outside the office running a 5K or 10K race, I might not have my hearing aids in, and sometimes first thing in the morning if I think I’m at the office before anyone else is there, I might not have them in either. I’ll put them in pretty quickly if it seems as if someone wants to engage in a conversation with me, but if I’m talking to someone one on one and we’re near each other, I can usually function pretty well.

Are there ways you consider being hearing impaired an advantage?

Jackie: Absolutely! I like to call my loss a true “superpower.” Sleeping is very peaceful, and when riding in airplanes I don’t need to invest in gadgets to quiet the loud talkers and crying babies. I love music and when I go to concerts I can take out my aids so I never have to admit the music is “too loud.” And a few years ago my mother and I laughed when she commented that no wonder I was so patient when my boys invited so many friends to our house—I couldn’t hear them.

Eric: When I really need to focus and get something done, I can take out my hearing aids and really concentrate on the task at hand. I think it’s easier to check out and tune in to my thoughts. As Jackie said, it’s easier to tune out things in public places. I also sleep more soundly than most people I know. Sometimes in a noisy place I can actually do better than normal hearing people because of my ability to read lips. The other interesting thing is technology. With my newest hearing aids I have a Bluetooth adapter that turns my hearing aids into receivers for my cell phone and landline and MP3 player!  This is very cool.

What’s something surprising you’ve found about your hearing loss?

Jackie: How many people think it is funny to say “what?” when I explain that I have a hearing loss. It surprises me how everyone thinks they are the first to think of that joke. But seriously, when I started preparing for this article I reflected back on the 20 or so years since I was diagnosed and realized how much I didn’t know about my loss. Back then, there wasn’t WebMD or Google, so I just didn’t do much research. I realized how little I understood about something that was such a key part of my life. What I learned in my recent research is that one in 10 Americans have hearing loss, but only a fifth of the population use hearing aids. I found this amazing since close to 90 to 95 percent of those people could benefit from a hearing aid solution. To me any stigma that may be encountered due to another person’s ignorance will never compare to the quality of life that I would miss without my aids.

Eric: My biggest surprise is how much I crave quiet. I find it very annoying and distracting when the TV or radio is on in the background, especially when it’s loud. So, even though I have a hearing loss, I’m sensitive to loud noises (especially screaming babies at restaurants and on airplanes now that my kids are past that stage) and really don’t like loud music at all. The other thing, which really isn’t a surprise, is that I’m horrible at multitasking and get distracted by simply being able to hear. When I first got my hearing aids, it was fascinating to hear certain sounds, like the sound liquid makes when you pour it in a cup or birds chirping in my backyard. I never heard those things before I got hearing aids.

HHF Earns a Gold!

By Tara Guastella

HHF recently received the GuideStar Exchange Gold participation level, a leading symbol of transparency and accountability provided by GuideStar USA, Inc., the premier source of nonprofit information.  This level demonstrates HHF’s deep commitment to nonprofit transparency and accountability.

We have worked hard to showcase our progress toward our mission of curing hearing loss and tinnitus, and our long-held belief in being transparent about our work, to our constituents.

As a GuideStar Exchange participant, we will use their platform to share a wealth of up-to-date information about our work to our supporters and GuideStar's immense online audience of nonprofits, grantmakers, individual donors, and the media.

In order to be awarded the GuideStar Exchange logo, we completed a comprehensive nonprofit report in order to obtain the Gold level of participation.

We encourage you to check out our profile on GuideStar to see what we're all about. We are engaged in exciting initiatives, and we are thrilled to have another platform for communicating our advancement and progress toward a cure.

About the GuideStar Exchange

The GuideStar Exchange is an initiative designed to connect nonprofits with current and potential supporters. With millions of people coming to GuideStar to learn more about nonprofit organizations, the GuideStar Exchange allows nonprofits to share a wealth of up-to-date information with GuideStar's many audiences. Becoming a GuideStar Exchange participant is free of charge. To join, organizations need to update their report pages, completing all required fields for participation. The GuideStar Exchange level logos, acknowledged as symbols of transparency in the nonprofit sector, are displayed on all Exchange participants' nonprofit reports.

Protect Your Ears (and Health) on St. Patrick's Day

By Yishane Lee

St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration of Ireland’s patron saint, who is credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. (The three-leaf clover is allegedly how he explained the Holy Trinity.) These days, the holiday is, for better or worse, associated with heavy drinking, and at the risk of dampening the festivities, we thought we should remind readers of the dangers of consuming excessive alcohol and hearing loss.

German researchers reported in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research that lifelong alcohol consumption damages the brain. Specifically, it leads to brain shrinkage. (Alzheimer’s disease has also been linked to brain tissue shrinkage.)

The disturbing news was that social drinkers with a lighter consumption of alcohol were just at risk as people who drank heavily, although more research is needed. To do their study, the scientists measured brain currents called brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) to assess central auditory pathways in a group of 38 men who were undergoing tumor removal or plastic surgery.

Separately, a British report in the journal BMC Ear, Nose, and Throat Disorders found that drinking alcohol blunts lower frequencies—which happen to be the ones you need the most to understand speech.

Combine this with the difficulty people with hearing loss have mastering the “cocktail-party effect”—the ability to discern one person’s speech in the presence of a lot of background noise—and no wonder large, celebratory gatherings involving alcohol are a minefield for people with hearing loss as well as for those trying to protect their hearing. In other words, if you’re on your third or fourth Guinness and can’t understand the Irish bloke shouting about shamrocks (foreign accents are tricky, too!) in a crowded pub, have a tall glass of water next round.

There are yet more risks. Drinking alcohol also causes your blood vessels to expand. This puts you at risk for tinnitus. However, there has also been a hearing-protective effect ascribed to drinking red wine (or eating red grapes). This is due to the presence of resveratrol, a substance found in the skins of red grapes.

The bottom line? There’s no reason not to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a pint of Guinness, but as the saying goes, everything in moderation.

The Hearing Restoration Project a Top 5 Nominee in the 5th Annual CLASSY Awards!

By Tara Guastella

The CLASSY Awards, in partnership with the United Nations Foundation, are the largest social impact awards ceremony in the U.S., for the fifth year recognizing champions of social progress.  I am thrilled to report that our Hearing Restoration Project (HRP) has been nominated for a CLASSY award and has been chosen as a Top 5 nominee in the Health Services: Non-Communicable Diseases category!  

CLASSY Award nominees must complete a thorough application process that includes detailed information about the social problem the program is addressing and how the program is making strides for monumental change. Delivering a cure for hearing loss and tinnitus has been and continues to be a top priority at HHF. Now the HRP is being recognized for the contribution we will make to bettering the lives of nearly 50 million Americans with hearing loss and tinnitus through this research.

AOL compares the CLASSYs to the Oscars and we couldn’t be happier to have the HRP receive this type of recognition in the national philanthropy arena. We are so honored to have the HRP highlighted alongside other incredibly inspiring organizations driving social change not only in health services but in all social service categories.

The CLASSY Awards weekend will be held in San Diego, where the award finalists will be announced. The weekend in early May also brings together leaders from across the social sector in a setting that drives collaboration around solving social problems. Team members from HHF will be in attendance at the awards weekend, and we look forward to sharing news about the outcome of the awards race.

Hybrid Cochlear Implants Blend High and Low Frequencies for a Fuller Sound

By Yishane Lee

“Electro-acoustic stimulation” is a mouthful, which may explain why “hybrid cochlear implant” is becoming shorthand for the latest thing in cochlear implantation.

What is a hybrid CI? It is a cochlear implant that makes use of residual hearing in the cochlea, with the goal of preserving it. Lina Reiss, Ph.D., of the Oregon Health and Science University, is a 2012 and 2013 Emerging Research Grant recipient conducting research in hybrid CIs, and she cowrote a piece in our Winter issue of Hearing Health introducing us to this exciting development.

The hybrid is especially promising because it is ideal for people with age-related hearing loss. As the story says:

“The hybrid CI helps people with high-frequency hearing loss while retaining their natural, residual hearing in the low frequencies. A high-frequency hearing loss, like that common in age-related hearing loss, makes consonants difficult to discern. The hybrid CI provides high-frequency information electrically and restores consonant perception. The residual low-frequency acoustic hearing helps ‘round out’ the artificial hearing provided by the CI, and together this gives the user a fuller hearing experience.”

Dr. Reiss collaborated with Christopher W. Turner, Ph.D., of the University of Iowa. Dr. Turner has been involved from the beginning in the development, assessment, and optimization of the hybrid electrode, with more than 20 publications on the subject since 2003, and he is a former HHF grant recipient as well.

One risk of hybrids is losing the low-frequency hearing entirely after implantation. A slightly longer electrode length—shorter than a traditional CI but longer than the initial hybrids—allows the implant to function like a traditional CI if the acoustic hearing is lost. It is undergoing clinical trials and received preliminary FDA approval last November, which is a very good sign.

I asked Dr. Reiss how she became a researcher, and specifically how she came to study cochlear implants. She says:

“I was always interested in science because my father was a scientist. In high school and college, I had some very stimulating research experiences in biological research. I also have a severe-profound hearing loss, and so have a personal interest in auditory research.

“After my sophomore year, I was lucky to obtain a summer research internship working in Eric Young’s auditory neurophysiology laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, where I studied how auditory nerve fibers encode speech sounds. I ended up doing my Ph.D. in that lab, studying how the dorsal cochlear nucleus encodes sound localization cues.

“However, I wanted to do more translational research, so ended up doing a postdoctoral fellowship with Chris Turner at the University of Iowa, where I got involved with the hybrid CI clinical trials. We got a lot of very interesting data with the hybrid CI study, particularly regarding brain plasticity, and there were many other interesting research directions to go on to from there.”

At HHF, we’re definitely excited to see where Dr. Reiss’s curiosity leads.

Catch the ReelAbilities Film Fest in New York City This Week

By Tara Guastella

The ReelAbilities Film Festival kicks off today in New York City and runs through next Tuesday. This is the largest film festival in the country—it includes films that are screened at more than a dozen locations across the U.S.—dedicated to promoting awareness and appreciation of the lives, stories, and artistic expressions of people with different disabilities.

Launched in 2007 in New York City, the festival presents award-winning films by and about people with disabilities in multiple locations throughout each hosting city. Post-screening discussions and other engaging programs bring together the community to explore, discuss, embrace, and celebrate the diversity of our shared human experience.

Festival highlights this year include Lindsey Dryden’s Lost and Sound, which follows three artists who lose their hearing and journey deep into sound and silence to rediscover music, and Sounds for Mazin, which chronicles how a 12-year-old boy with hearing loss looks forward to getting cochlear implants, but his friends make him second-guess the decision.

A special offer for friends of HHF - use code EFDHHF for $3 tickets to Lost and Sound at the JCC in Manhattan!

There are many additional films to enjoy: Check out the schedule for a complete listing and buy your tickets today.

If you’re not in the NYC area this weekend, don’t fret! The ReelAbilities Film Festival makes its way through many cities across the U.S., including Atlanta, Boston, Houston, the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington D.C., and many more. Find out more on the ReelAbilities website.

Closed Captioning: Keeping the Pace

By Kathi Mestayer

“You’ve done your best,” I heard the character on a “Law & Order” rerun say. A few seconds later, the closed captioning read, “You’re under arrest.” The delay was only a few seconds, but it was enough so that I couldn’t listen, read lips, and read the captions at the same time.

When the caption timing is better (which is most of the time), reading, hearing, and lipreading are seamless. But those few seconds’ delay made it impossible, amounting to captioning that was of little value.

I visited the website for the Federal Communications Commission, and entered the information about the show, channel, time, date, and the problem with the captions. Here’s the link. (Scroll down to “Closed Captioning” and then complete the online form.)

About two weeks later, I received a (paper) letter from the FCC to the effect that the report had been received and forwarded to my cable provider, Cox. Within a few days, I got a phone call from a representative from my cable provider, who was concerned about the captioning problem. (She has a hearing loss herself.) She said she would check into it and asked me to let her know if I noticed the captioning was delayed again, and to please note the time, date, and channel, so she could track it down. 

A couple of days later, she called to say it was fixed!  

This was to me astoundingly quick customer service, thanks to the FCC. If you notice a significant delay (or other problem) in closed captioning, report it to the FCC. It can be fixed—but only if someone notices and lets them know.

Hearing Health magazine staff writer Kathi Mestayer serves on advisory boards for the Virginia Department for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing and the Greater Richmond, Va., chapter of the Hearing Loss Association of America.

Meeting of the HRP at ARO Midwinter Meeting

By Tara Guastella

Last Saturday, the second meeting of the year for the members of the Hearing Restoration Project (HRP) consortium occurred. In conjunction with the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO) Midwinter Meeting, the HRP meeting took place in sunny San Diego—a much-needed respite from the frigid temperatures many of us around the country are encountering!

This HRP meeting was unique as it was the first time the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the HRP was invited to attend. During the meeting, scientists for each of the currently funded HRP projects made brief presentations of their research progress. Following each presentation, other consortium members and SAB members took part in lively discussion identifying new ideas and opportunities for collaboration.

The group also had an in-depth discussion about the use of bioinformatics. These are sophisticated computational tools that will allow HRP consortium members to analyze large sets of cross-species data. Bioinformatics is a crucial part of the work of the HRP consortium as it will help identify and compare which genes allow for the natural regeneration of hair cells in animals like chickens and fish, and which genes inhibit this regeneration in animals like mice.

Once we have a clearer understanding around the genetics that allow for hair cell regeneration, we can begin to move into Phase II of our Strategic Research Plan. Phase II centers around using the knowledge gleaned through bioinformatic analysis to trigger hair cell regeneration in mammals—getting us one step closer to a cure for hearing loss and tinnitus.  

Stay tuned for updates on newly funded HRP projects to be announced this spring!