Hearing in Biological News

Diminuendo -- New mouse model for understanding cause of progressive hearing loss

The respective microRNA seed region influences the production of sensory hair cells in the inner ear, both in the mouse and in humans. The findings have been published ahead of print in the current online issue of Nature Genetics . This study represents a major step forward in elucidating the com...

New insights into progressive hearing loss

In parallel studies in human and mouse, two groups of researchers have come to the same conclusion: that a new kind of gene is associated with progressive hearing loss. The new gene - called a microRNA - is a tiny fragment of RNA that affects the production of hundreds of other molecules within se...

Study offers clues to beating hearing loss

Researchers at the University of Leeds have made a significant step forward in understanding the causes of some forms of deafness. The Leeds team has discovered that the myosin 7 motor protein - found in the tiny hairs of the inner ear that pick up sound - moves and works in a different way from...

Feeling your words: Hearing with your face

New Haven, Conn. The movement of facial skin and muscles around the mouth plays an important role not only in the way the sounds of speech are made, but also in the way they are heard according to a study by scientists at Haskins Laboratories, a Yale-affiliated research laboratory. "How your ...

A BBVA Foundation project comes up with a system enabling detection of cetacean hearing loss

December 17, 2008. A research project supported by the BBVA Foundation and led by Michel Andr, director of the Laboratory of Applied Bioacoustics at the UPC (Universitat Politcnica de Catalunya) has developed the world's first portable system for measuring cetacean hearing sensitivity. This aud...

House Ear Institute, TGen and Belgian researchers identify gene in age-related hearing loss

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 older but other people can still hear a pin drop? The answer may be in a study released online in the journal Human...

Genes that control cell death fingered in age-related hearing loss

Several genes that play a role in how our body's cells normally auto-destruct may play a role in age-related hearing loss, according to research published online in the journal Apoptosis a journal devoted to the topic of cell suicide, or programmed cell death. Doctors know that genetics play...

Study links low-frequency hearing to shape of the cochlea

Shape matters, even in hearing. Specifically, it is the shape of the cochlea the snail-shell-shaped organ in the inner ear that converts sound waves into nerve impulses that the brain deciphers which proves to be surprisingly important. A study published online last week in the Proceedings o...

A screening strategy using zebrafish targets genes that protect against hearing loss

A small striped fish is helping scientists understand what makes people susceptible to a common form of hearing loss, although, in this case, its not the fishs ears that are of interest. In a study published on February 29 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics, researchers at the University of ...

Genes influence age-related hearing loss

Waltham, MAA new Brandeis University study of twins shows that genes play a significant role in the level of hearing loss that often appears in late middle age. The research, in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, examined genetic and environmental factors affecting hearing loss in the f...

Biophysical method may help to recover hearing

Scientists based in Switzerland and South Africa have created a biophysical methodology that may help to overcome hearing deficits, and potentially remedy even substantial hearing loss. The authors propose a method of retuning functioning regions of the ear to recognize frequencies originally asso...

Gene responsible for common hearing loss identified for first time

A gene responsible for the single most common cause of hearing loss among white adults, otosclerosis, has been identified for the first time, a scientist told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics in Nice, France. Ms Melissa Thys, from the Department of Medical Genetics, ...

Study shows isolation of stem cells may lead to a treatment for hearing loss

Have you ever walked by someone listening to their i-Pod loud enough for you recognize the song? Studies have shown noise-induced hearing loss is going to become the next big epidemic affecting our younger generation though the effects won’t show until it is too late to treat. In addition to loud...

Stem cell transplants explored at Stanford as a possible treatment for hearing loss

Stefan Heller's dream is to someday find a cure for deafness. As a leader in stem cell-based research on the inner ear at the Stanford University School of Medicine, he's got a step-by-step plan for making this dream a reality. It may take another decade or so, but if anyone can do it, he'...

To elude bats, a moth keeps its hearing in tune

It has been known for over 50 years that moths can hear the ultrasonic hunting calls of their nocturnal predator, the bat. Moth ears are among the simplest in the insect world—they have only two or four vibration-sensitive neurons attached to a small eardrum. Previously, it was thought that these e...

Critical hearing gene helps send auditory messages to brain

By studying a gene earlier linked to deafness in humans, researchers now have new insight into the molecular process by which components of the inner ear send messages to the brain. The team reports its findings in the October 20, 2006, issue of the journal Cell, published by Cell Press. The rese...

St. Jude finds clues to hearing loss from chemotherapy

Children with cancer who suffer hearing loss due to the toxic effects of chemotherapy might one day be able to get their hearing back through pharmacological and gene therapy, thanks to work done with mouse models at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Mice with a variety of genetic mutations th...

Female birds boost up their eggs when hearing sexy song

In a new study published in the latest issue of Ethology researchers show that female songbirds can alter the size of eggs and possibly the sex of their chicks according to how they perceive their mate's quality. The researchers played back attractive ("sexy") songs and less attractive control s...

Nicotine exposure during development leads to hearing problems

Scientists know that children of women who smoke during pregnancy can develop hearing-related cognitive deficits. For the first time, researchers believe they have evidence that not only implicates nicotine as the culprit, but also shows what the substance does to the brain to cause these deficits....

Yale researchers find environmental toxins disruptive to hearing in mammals

Yale School of Medicine researchers have new data showing chloride ions are critical to hearing in mammals, which builds on previous research showing a chemical used to keep barnacles off boats might disrupt the balance of these ions in ear cells. "Our data are the first to directly show that chl...

Frog’s ear canal may provide insights for understanding human hearing loss

A rare frog that lives in rushing streams and waterfalls in east-central China is able to make itself heard above the roar of flowing water by communicating ultrasonically, scientists reported March 16 in the journal Nature. Attributes that enable the frog to hear ultrasounds are made possible by t...

Singapore nanotechnology combats fatal brain infections

...t could cause fatal infections and are highly therapeutic. Major brain infections such as meningitis and encephalitis are a leading cause of death, hearing loss, learning disability and brain damage in patients. IBN's peptide nanoparticles, on the other hand, contain a membrane-penetrating component t...

Flexible solar strips light up campus bus shelter

...s and batteries. Funding for the initiative was provided through an NSERC strategic grant and an NSERC I2I grant. The team is interested in hearing from transit riders about their experience with the lit bus shelters, and any suggestions they may have. ...

Manatees can probably hear which directions boats approach from

...form in their enclosure where they could listen to sounds played from one of four speakers arranged around their heads. Knowing that the manatees' hearing was most sensitive to sounds ranging from 10 to 20kHz, while the animals' calls range from 2.5 to 6kHz, Colbert and David Mann designed three sounds r...

A bad performance is better than no performance at all

...pecies-specific song that needs to be activated by hearing song", says Cornelia Voigt, co-author of the study...ly interesting, as it shows that the juveniles, by hearing their tutors, had completed their song development... development phase and still make corrections when hearing a suitable model later in life". ...

Skip this cocktail party

...brain, as well as sensory functions, in particular hearing in mammals. Compromised hearing would have significant impact for dolphins, because as Montie points out, "these animals rely on hearing as their primary sensory modality to communicate a...

Development of an artificial simulator of the nervous system to do research into diseases

...vent driven look up table based simulator'), which permits to reproduce any part of the body's nervous system, such as the retina, the cerebellum, the hearing centres or the nervous centres. This scientific advance permits to analyze and understand the functions of the nervous centres, to do research into ne...

UCLA scientists discover ultrasonic communication among frogs

...most amphibians, reptiles and birds are capable of hearing or producing. Key parts of the ear must be special...research may have implications for improving human hearing aids and addressing hearing loss. Most...

Laughing hyenas, wailing levees, the sound of cheese and blaring bagpipes

...d elaborately-oriented hair bundles in the inner ear, which suggests better hearing than fish with less complex patterns. Some of the deep-sea fishes also have... olfactory systems of deep-sea fishes; it is reasonable to think that their hearing should also be important in the dark," says Deng. The talk "Comparative...

Scaling the wall of deafness

...ors in the United States experiencing some form of hearing loss. But the era of the hearing aid, and shouting at aging in-laws, may soon be ov... landmark study by a world-renowned geneticist and hearing loss expert at Tel Aviv University has uncovered o...

Rutgers study finds many consumers ignore food product recalls

...her extreme, some consumers take a "better safe than sorry" attitude. More than 25 percent reported that they had simply discarded food products after hearing about a recall, potentially wasting safe, nutritious food. Many consumers also avoid purchasing products not included in the recall but which are simi...

Case Western Reserve University receives $1.66m grant from NIH for otoprotection research

...very affective in patients with severe or profound hearing loss. "Many USH patients benefit from cochlear ...lion cells are the cells that provide the sense of hearing by sending sound waves from the cochlea to the bra...ial to uncover new therapeutic approaches to treat hearing loss in Usher syndrome. I'm very grateful for the ...

Living long, living well

...mics, will find the half-day open forum stimulating and relevant. Short, engaging presentations will address topics that range from the impact of hearing loss on cognitive abilities and the complex role of DNA in aging, to why nursing homes need to change the conventional model of care. There will also ...

Researchers develop flow sensors based on hair structures of blind cavefish

...ehicle navigation, and marine research. "These hair cells are like well-engineered mechanical sensors, similar to those that we use for balance and hearing in the human ear, where the deflection of the jelly-encapsulated hair cell measures important flow information," said Vladimir Tsukruk, a professor in...

Arctic governments and industry still unprepared for oil spills 20 years after Exxon Valdez

...wcase rocks collected from Prince William Sound beaches that are still coated in oil. Additionally, the House Natural Resources Committee will hold a hearing on Tuesday examining the future of offshore oil development in U.S. waters. "While new regulations are in place regarding response to oil spill d...

Lehigh researcher awarded $1.8 million NIH grant

...ehigh's biological sciences department. "While the hearing health implications of his research are clear, I s...ental models because researchers are able to study hearing at any stage. Over the long term, Burger hopes to ...vertebrate systems. Burger first began studying hearing at a bat auditory neuroscience lab while a Ph.D. s...

Musicians have biological advantage in identifying emotion in sound

...ween emotion perception and musical experience. One of his recent studies indicated that musicians might even be able to sense emotion in sounds after hearing them for only 50 milliseconds. The 30 right-handed men and women with and without music training in the European Journal of Neuroscience study we...

World's top minds to celebrate 'the birth and life of beginnings'

...esident for Research and Robert O. Lawton Professor of Physics at Florida State. "This outreach effort truly offers something for anyone interested in hearing what some of the world's finest scholars have to say about the history and evolution of ideas in fields ranging from the life sciences to music." F...

Abandon hope

...o do so is to hope for a sustainable future, because every other message I receive suggests that disaster is guaranteed," they explain. People are hearing radically contradictory messages: Scientists present evidence that profound environmental disaster is imminent. It is urgent to live up to ...

Stress may hasten the growth of melanoma tumors

... COLUMBUS, Ohio For patients with a particularly aggressive form of skin cancer malignant melanoma stress, including that which comes from simply hearing that diagnosis, might amplify the progression of their disease. But the same new research that infers this also suggests that the use of commonly p...