Deafness News and Research

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Researchers study how the auditory system achieves accurate speech recognition

For humans to achieve accurate speech recognition and communicate with one another, the auditory system must recognize distinct categories of sounds - such as words - from a continuous incoming stream of sounds.

27 Mar 2019

Brain area that only processes spoken, not written words identified

Patients in a new Northwestern Medicine study were able to comprehend words that were written but not said aloud. They could write the names of things they saw but not verbalize them.

22 Mar 2019

New $9.7 million NIH grant project seeks to improve hearing restoration

The University of Minnesota announced today that it will lead a $9.7 million grant over the next five years from the National Institutes for Health BRAIN Initiative to develop a new implantable device and surgical procedure with the goal of restoring more natural hearing to people who are deaf or severely hard-of-hearing.

20 Mar 2019

UVA researchers discover potential contributor to age-related hearing loss

Researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have discovered a new potential contributor to age-related hearing loss, a finding that could eventually help doctors identify people at risk.

12 Mar 2019

Least-active neurons play more important role in brain behavior than previously assumed

Brain cells recorded as among the least electrically active during a specific task may be the most important to doing it right.

26 Feb 2019

Gene therapy restores hearing in mice with congenital genetic deafness

In collaboration with the universities of Miami, Columbia and San Francisco, scientists from the Institut Pasteur, Inserm, CNRS, Collège de France, Sorbonne University and the University of Clermont Auvergne have managed to restore hearing in an adult mouse model of DFNB9 deafness - a hearing disorder that represents one of the most frequent cases of congenital genetic deafness.

19 Feb 2019

Multinational initiative to study familial primary distal renal tubular acidosis

In addition to regulating the body's fluid balance, by excreting greater or smaller amounts of urine, the kidneys also maintain the proper balance of electrolytes (salts) and the pH (an acid-base equilibrium) within our body.

19 Feb 2019

Study finds genetic vulnerability to use of menthol cigarettes

A genetic variant found only in people of African descent significantly increases a smoker's preference for cigarettes containing menthol, a flavor additive.

15 Feb 2019

Largest description of ST3GAL5 deficiency combined using data from 104 individuals

Researchers have combined the largest description of ST3GAL5 deficiency using detailed natural history data from 104 individuals of Amish ancestry born between 1986 and 2017 with a definite or probable diagnosis of ST3GAL5 deficiency.

6 Feb 2019

Study highlights great diversity of language development in children with ASD

A close collaboration between University of Connecticut (Letitia Naigles (PI) and Deborah Fein) and Interacting Minds Centreresearchers (Riccardo Fusaroli and Ethan Weed) is exploring how parents and children influence each other when they interact, and the longer term impact this has on language acquisition.

24 Jan 2019

Unique form of chronic sinusitis found in older patients

Older patients with a diagnosis of chronic sinusitis -- a disease of the nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses that often persists over many years -- have a unique inflammatory signature that may render them less responsive to steroid treatment, according to a new study published by Vanderbilt researchers.

23 Jan 2019

Scientists discover new genetic mutations causing inherited deaf-blindness

A team of scientists from Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University together with their colleagues from leading scientific centers of Moscow and India described a number of genetic mutations causing Usher syndrome (inherited deaf-blindness).

23 Jan 2019

Researchers identify hundreds of new genes linked to blindness in lab mice

Hundreds of new genes linked to blindness and other vision disorders have been identified in a screen of mouse strains. Many of these genes are likely important in human vision and the results could help identify new causes of hereditary blindness in patients.

24 Dec 2018

Study lays foundation for addressing unresolved questions in human aging

Doctors have long observed that biological age and chronological age are not always one and the same. A 55-year-old may exhibit many signs of old age and have numerous age-related diseases, whereas an 80-year-old may be healthy and robust.

20 Dec 2018

UI study leads to better understanding of signaling capacity between neurons

The fundamental process of information transfer from neuron to neuron occurs through a relay of electrical and chemical signaling at the synapse, the junction between neurons. Electrical signals, called action potentials, cause voltage-gated calcium channels on the presynaptic neuron to open.

18 Dec 2018

CTF along with NTAP and Sage announce first-ever open data portal for neurofibromatosis

The Children's Tumor Foundation, together with the Neurofibromatosis Therapeutic Acceleration Program and Sage Bionetworks, has announced the first-ever open data portal for scientific research results in the field of neurofibromatosis.

17 Dec 2018

Epigenetic maps of the inner ear could lead to development of therapeutics for hearing loss

Epigenetics is the expression and control of genes. The epigenetics involved in the inner ear is a critical part of the mystery of hearing.

3 Dec 2018

Electrical impulses to the olfactory bulb can provide sense of smell, research shows

Physicians at Massachusetts Eye and Ear have, for the first time, induced a sense of smell in humans by using electrodes in the nose to stimulate nerves in the olfactory bulb, a structure in the brain where smell information from the nose is processed and sent to deeper regions of brain.

27 Nov 2018

Progress in meningitis lags far behind other vaccine-preventable diseases, analysis shows

The global disease burden of meningitis remains unacceptably high, and progress lags substantially behind that of other vaccine-preventable diseases, warns a new analysis published in The Lancet Neurology.

15 Nov 2018

O'Donnell Brain Institute helps U.S. effort to study neural circuits behind learning, memory

UT Southwestern's O'Donnell Brain Institute will help in a national effort to understand the neural circuits behind learning, memory, and behavior.

3 Nov 2018