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Hearing / Deafness News From Medical News Today

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Tinnitus Key Cellular Mechanisms Identified (5/14/12) About 10% of the population is affected by hearing loss and tinnitus, a perception of sounds, such as ringing or buzzing in the ear in the absence of corresponding external sound, which typically develops after acoustic over-exposure to loud noises... The Potential And Limitations Of Gene Therapy For Hearing Loss (5/14/12) Regenerating sensory hair cells, which produce electrical signals in response to vibrations within the inner ear, could form the basis for treating age- or trauma-related hearing loss. One way to do this could be with gene therapy that drives new sensory hair cells to grow... Study Identifies Key Cellular Mechanisms Behind The Onset Of Tinnitus (5/14/12) Researchers in the University of Leicester's Department of Cell Physiology and Pharmacology have identified a cellular mechanism that could underlie the development of tinnitus following exposure to loud noises. The discovery could lead to novel tinnitus treatments, and investigations into potential drugs to prevent tinnitus are currently underway... Improved Understanding Of How Hearing Works (5/10/12) Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have gained important new insights into how our sense of hearing works. Their findings promise new avenues for scientists to understand what goes wrong when people experience deafness. Their findings are published in Royal Society Open Biology, a new open access journal... Where Touch And Hearing Meet (5/4/12) Given that vision and hearing are vital in day-to-day living, an individual generally notices any impairment of these senses right away. Regardless of the fact that various known genetic mutations can result in hereditary vision and hearing defects, little knowledge exists about the sense of touch as defects may not be as obvious, and therefore may go unnoticed... Detecting Some Causes Of Hearing Loss, Dizziness, With Cone Beam CT (5/3/12) Cone beam CT is superior to mutidetector CT for detecting superior semicircular canal dehiscence or the so called third window (a small hole in the bony wall of the inner ear bone that can cause dizziness and hearing loss) and it uses half the radiation dose, a new study shows... Touch And Hearing Have Common Genetic Basis: Gene Mutation Leads To Impairment In Both Senses (5/3/12) People with good hearing also have a keen sense of touch; people with impaired hearing generally have an impaired sense of touch. Extensive data supporting this hypothesis was presented by Dr. Henning Frenzel and Professor Gary R. Lewin of the Max Delbruck Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Germany... Touch And Hearing Impaired By Gene Mutation (5/1/12) According to a study conducted by Dr. Henning Frenzel and Professor Gary R. Lewin of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch, Germany, two of the 5 human senses - hearing and touch - have a common genetic basis. In individuals with Usher syndrome, the researchers identified a gene variation that is also responsible for the patients' impaired touch sensitivity... Prototype Microphone Could Make Cochlear Implants More Convenient (5/1/12) Cochlear implants have restored basic hearing to some 220,000 deaf people, yet a microphone and related electronics must be worn outside the head, raising reliability issues, preventing patients from swimming and creating social stigma... Bilingualism Fine-Tunes Hearing, Enhances Attention (5/1/12) A Northwestern University study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) provides the first biological evidence that bilinguals' rich experience with language in essence "fine-tunes" their auditory nervous system and helps them juggle linguistic input in ways that enhance attention and working memory... High-Frequency Hearing Loss (4/29/12) The genetics responsible for frequency-specific hearing loss have remained elusive until recently, when genetic loci were found that affected high-frequency hearing... Cochlear Implants Restore Hearing In Rare Disorder (4/23/12) Clinical-researchers from University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center report that cochlear implantation provides an effective and safe way of restoring hearing in patients with far advanced otosclerosis (FAO), a hereditary condition that can lead to severe hearing loss... Insomnia Takes Toll On Tinnitus Patients (4/22/12) For the more than 36 million people plagued by tinnitus, insomnia can have a negative effect on the condition, worsening the functional and emotional toll of chronic ringing, buzzing, hissing or clicking in the head and ears, according to a new study from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit... Surgery For Epilepsy Reveals How Selective Hearing Works In The Brain (4/20/12) The longstanding mystery of how selective hearing works - how people can tune in to a single speaker while tuning out their crowded, noisy environs - is solved this week in the journal Nature by two scientists from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF)... Sudden Hearing Loss - First National Guidelines Published (3/23/12) The first national treatment guideline for sudden hearing loss has been developed by a panel of 19 medical experts led by Robert J. Stachler, M.D., an otolaryngologist in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. Sudden hearing loss is a condition which sends thousands of individuals in the United States to the emergency room each year... Publication Of First National Guideline For Sudden Hearing Loss (3/21/12) The first national treatment guideline for sudden hearing loss, a frightening condition that sends thousands in the U.S. to the emergency room each year, was published this month in the journal Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery. The guideline was developed by a 19-member panel led by Robert J. Stachler, M.D... Tinnitus Loudness Reduced In Small Trial Of A Non-Invasive Therapy (3/21/12) The results of a small phase 1 clinical trial of a non-invasive tinnitus therapy where the patient listens to sounds through headphones claims that compared to placebo, the treatment reduced tinnitus loudness and annoyance within 12 weeks in 7 out of 10 patients. Experts who welcomed the news say they now want to see the results repeated in a much bigger phase 2 trial... Deafness And Mental Health - More Specialist Services Required (3/16/12) Deafness has a far-reaching impact on people's social, emotional, and cognitive development. The condition is heterogeneous, and about 7 in 10,000 people are severely or profoundly deaf, with about 70,000 people in the UK alone being profoundly deaf. About 15 to 26% of the global population suffers from hearing loss; most of them come from the poorest countries... Hair-Cell Roots Discovered Suggesting That The Brain Modulates Sound Sensitivity (3/12/12) The hair cells of the inner ear have a previously unknown "root" extension that may allow them to communicate with nerve cells and the brain to regulate sensitivity to sound vibrations and head position, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have discovered... Do You Hear What I Hear? (3/12/12) In both animals and humans, vocal signals used for communication contain a wide array of different sounds that are determined by the vibrational frequencies of vocal cords. For example, the pitch of someone's voice, and how it changes as they are speaking, depends on a complex series of varying frequencies... In Songbird Model, Deafening Found To Affect Vocal Nerve Cells Within Hours (3/9/12) Portions of a songbird's brain that control how it sings have been shown to decay within 24 hours of the animal losing its hearing. The findings, by researchers at Duke University Medical Center, show that deafness penetrates much more rapidly and deeply into the brain than previously thought... Persistent Tinnitus Relieved By Internet-Based Self-Help Training (3/9/12) Those suffering from nagging tinnitus can benefit from internet-based therapy just as much as patients who take part in group therapy sessions. These are the findings of a German-Swedish study in which patients with moderate to severe tinnitus tried out various forms of therapy over a ten-week period... Learning About Hearing In Adolescence Can Save Young People's Ears (3/7/12) Many adolescents frequently expose their ears to loud sounds, for example from portable music players. Some of them may think that 'the doctor said that my hearing is good, so I guess I can handle the loud volume'. A new doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, shows that research-based teaching in school can be used to positively change adolescents' awareness and behaviour... Sudden Hearing Loss: AAO-HNSF Clinical Practice Guideline (3/4/12) On March 1, 2012, the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation published a new Clinical Practice Guideline on Sudden Hearing Loss (SHL). This guideline is published as a supplement to Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. A sudden loss of hearing is a frightening symptom that most often prompts urgent medical care. Current diagnosis and treatment plans vary greatly... "SpeechJammer" Invention Stops A Person Talking Mid-Sentence (3/3/12) Two researchers in Japan have invented a "SpeechJammer" device that can stop a person talking in mid-sentence, by just projecting back to them "their own utterances at a delay of a few hundred milliseconds". The device does not stop them talking permanently, it is just that they become so confused, they can't finish their sentence and begin to stutter or just shut up...