Preservation of residual hearing after cochlear implantation is now considered an important goal of surgery. However, studies indicate an average post-operative hearing loss of around 20 dB at low frequencies. One factor which may contribute to post-operative hearing loss, but which has received little attention in the literature to date, is the increased stiffness of the round window, due to t...

Background: There has been increasing demand for the cochlear implantation of children who demonstrate some auditory capacity with conventional hearing aids. The purpose of this study was to examine speech recognition outcomes in a group of children who were regarded as borderline candidates for cochlear implantation as their residual hearing and/or auditory functioning levels exceeded typical ...

This article provides a review of recent developments in our understanding of how cochlear nonlinearity affects sound perception and how a loss of the nonlinearity associated with cochlear hearing impairment changes the way sounds are perceived. The response of the healthy mammalian basilar membrane (BM) to sound is sharply tuned, highly nonlinear, and compressive. Damage to the outer hair cell...

OBJECTIVE Magnetic resonance imaging is a routine investigation in cases of asymmetric sensorineural hearing loss, but it is not routinely used to investigate bilateral sensorineural hearing loss. METHOD This case report illustrates the benefits of magnetic resonance image scanning in the latter patient group. RESULTS A 53-year-old man with rapidly progressive, symmetrical, bilateral, senso...

Hearing loss in Paget's disease, a metabolic bone disease, has been reported in as many as 60% of cases, and is presumably related to changes in mineral density of the otic capsule. We describe a 59-year-old man with Paget's disease who had severe to profound hearing loss and was referred to us for cochlear implantation. Preoperative evaluation revealed poor communication skills despite signifi...

The occurrence of tinnitus can be linked to hearing loss in the majority of cases, but there is nevertheless a large degree of unexplained heterogeneity in the relation between hearing loss and tinnitus. Part of the problem might be that hearing loss is usually quantified in terms of increased hearing thresholds, which only provides limited information about the underlying cochlear damage. More...

Introduction: A common cause of conductive hearing loss in young children is otitis media, which when chronic or recurrent can effect speech and language development. However, little is known about the effects of such conductive loss on resting activity levels in the auditory system. Hypothesis: Conductive hearing loss will change spontaneous activity levels at the inner hair cell synapse, and ...

Osteoprotegerin (OPG) is a key regulator of bone remodeling. Mutations and variations in the OPG gene cause many human diseases that are characterized by not only skeletal abnormalities but also poorly understood hearing loss: Paget's disease, osteoporosis, and celiac disease. To gain insight into the mechanisms of hearing loss in OPG deficiency, we studied OPG knockout (Opg(-/-)) mice. We show...

introduction:   the daf is a large persian frame drum used as a musical instrument in both popular and classical music which can induce a percussive sound at low frequencies (146–290 hz) with peaks of up to 130 dbspl. the percussive sounds have a power distribution in the region of saccular sensitivity. in view of the saccular stimulation by sound in humans, we decided to use cervical vestibula...