Our Emerging Research Grants program is the leading seed funding opportunity for early stage researchers. ERG also includes Expanded and Focused Discovery Awards, which are grant opportunities in specific topics (such as central auditory processing disorder, hyperacusis, Ménière’s disease, and tinnitus) that are open to eligible investigators at any career stage.

Otoaging is a new word I coined to describe both the premature aging of cochlear hair cells and synapses caused by noise, and the end result, hearing loss in old age. I was inspired by the term photoaging, used by dermatologists to describe the premature aging of the skin by sun.

This control experiment shows that the hearing organ must be intact for sound to produce pain-related behavior. This may seem obvious, but it’s important to understand that the pain you experience does not come only from your eardrum or outer ear.

With support from an R21 grant from the NIH, Hui Hong, Ph.D., will investigate how the auditory efferent system changes after noise-induced hearing loss and whether those changes help or hinder recovery.

Often these surprising sources of loud sounds come about from a misguided belief that loud means fun—the louder it is, the more festive. The good news? Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, turning it down even a little can help save our hearing a lot.

A quiet activist is using videos to promote science fact over noise fiction.

On this Veterans Day and every day, Hearing Health Foundation (HHF) thanks our U.S. service members and veterans for their sacrifices. This group is disproportionately at risk for hearing damage, but earlier this year changes to how tinnitus is rated as a compensable disability were proposed.

Our partner Hyperacusis Research recently hosted a webinar that highlighted both the human impact of hyperacusis—pain triggered by everyday sounds—and the scientific progress being made to understand and treat it. 

My focus is studying pathologies following noise overexposure. This includes noise-induced hearing loss and pain hyperacusis. I specifically look at how the immune system interacts with the neurons of the ear after noise.

This study shows that a single variant in the Foxg1 gene can affect how the brain processes sounds and lead to a heightened sensitivity to noise.

Our data showed that introducing the mutated nicotinic receptor into otherwise healthy ears can prevent, to some extent, permanent auditory damage caused by loud noise and accelerate hearing recovery.

What I have discovered is that unlike many other disabilities and chronic conditions, there are no anthologies or collections of personal stories published in book form about hyperacusis. So by publishing this book, I hope to develop greater awareness and understanding about hyperacusis.