News on Hearing Research

When we hear a sound, sensory cells in our inner ear trigger the release of a chemical-called a neurotransmitter-to neighboring nerve cells, which, in turn, relay the auditory...

Listening to a conversation or audio book while walking or exercising sounds simple enough for most people, but it may become more difficult for people in their upper 70s and...

Moose, of the Bullwinkle variety, are known to have excellent hearing. They can pick up a mating call from up to two miles away. That's pretty good, don't you think? The Study...

House Ear Institute Researchers Discover a Type of Supporting Cells Resistant to Notch Signaling Los Angeles, CA - January 20, 2009 - In a new study in the January 20 issue of...

Physicians at the University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago performed a rare surgery this week to restore hearing to a deaf patient. Marisela Leon, 44, has...

The vestibular system, a series of fluid-filled canals in the inner ear, is essential for maintaining our balance, posture, and the body's orientation in space. Disorders of this...

National Geographic recently reported that a group of researchers at University of Illinois discovered that the male Chinese Torrent frog is able to block out background noise in...

A UCLA study shows for the first time how microscopic crystals form sound and gravity sensors inside the inner ear. Located at the ends of cilia - tiny cellular hairs in the ear that move and transmit signals - these crystals play an important role in detecting sound, maintaining balance and regulating movement.

Los Angeles, Calif. - Dec. 2, 2008 - Presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss, accounts for 30 percent of all hearing loss. So, why do some people lose their hearing as they get...

There are roughly 20,000 to 25,000 genes in the human body, and for the most part, each gene is supposedly responsible for encoding one particular protein. However, researchers...

There is increasing and compelling evidence to suggest that brains weakened by either age or illness process auditory information slower than healthy ones. Since a strong...

Researchers have defined a mutation in the mouse genome that mimics progressive hearing loss in humans. A team from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, working...

Although babies typically start talking around 12 months of age, their brains actually begin processing certain aspects of language much earlier, so that by the time they start...

Skodsborg, DK November 10 - Unconventional approaches to knowledge sharing proved to be the catalyst for collaboration, innovation and insight at the Ida Institute's pilot...

Hints of 'blebbing' in ears of mice help guide effort to ease human diseaseSeveral genes that play a role in how our body's cells normally auto-destruct may play a role in...

Chicago Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), physicians can identify soft-tissue defects that contribute to hearing loss in children, according to a report in the September...

Tampa, Fla. (Sep. 3rd, 2008) According to an Italian research team publishing their findings in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (17:6), hearing loss due to dama...

Chicago Prosthetic ears appear to improve hearing and speech recognition in noisy environments, according to a report in the September/October issue of Archives of Facial Plastic...

Successful production of functional sensory hair cells in the inner ears of mice suggests that a new therapy to regain hearing may be possibleAugust 27, 2008 - Portland, Ore...

Exploring the various performance times needed to pick out specific sounds in a complex scene(Boston) - Call it the cocktail party effect: how an individual can participate in a...

The traditional view of individual brain areas involved in perception of different sensory stimulii.e., one brain region involved in hearing and another involved in seeinghas...

GN Otometrics and Fall Prevention Clinics of America' deliver leading edge diagnostics to Family Practice and Internal Medicine practices working with patients at risk for the...

Research conducted at Rutgers University has shown that exposure to a changed acoustic and social environment can rewire the way the brain processes sounds. Beginning in the...

Chicago - Mild memory impairment may be associated with central auditory processing dysfunction, or difficulty hearing in complex situations with competing noise, such as hearing...

A study examining auditory abilities using human fossils from the Pleistocene era offers new clues about the origins of speech, suggesting it may have emerged earlier than...