Vocal cord paralysis occurs when nerve impulses to the larynx are disrupted, causing problems with speech and breathing. Vocal cord closure is crucial for the production of sound, or phonation, and to protect the airway from food and liquids that might enter. The nerve to the vocal cords can be injured in a variety of […]
Ten percent of newborns infected with cytomegalovirus suffer from hearing loss. Keiko Hirose, MD, in the Department of Otolaryngology at Washington University is trying to figure out why. CMV or cytomegalovirus is a common viral infection in humans. It typically goes unnoticed and is only likely to cause problems when it occurs in infants or […]
Patients deafened from a vestibular schwannoma have very limited options to restore hearing in their affected ear. Researchers at Washington University hope to change that paradigm. In a new FDA-approved clinical trial, the lateral skull base team will evaluate a new Auditory Nerve Testing System that may allow tumor removal with simultaneous cochlear implantation. Currently, […]
As many as 20% of people may experience tinnitus, the perception of noise or ringing in the ears. While it’s usually not a sign of something serious, the phantom noise created by tinnitus can interfere with the ability to concentrate, hear external sound, sleep, and sometimes even enjoy life. Common causes for tinnitus include age-related […]
Neuroscientist Jonathan Peelle, PhD, was awarded a one-year $479,000 grant from the National Institute on Aging to look at the influence of reward and motivation in speech processing. The project, called, “Age-related changes in language processing,” will study whether offering listeners explicit rewards result in greater speech intelligibility among older adults. The study is a […]
Diseases associated with motor control and balance represent the most common neurological disorders affecting the world today. To help fight this trend, Pablo Blazquez, PhD, and Tatyana Yakusheva, PhD, study the role of the cerebellum in motor control, balance and spatial navigation. They use a diverse array of experimental techniques, including measures of individual neuron […]
Washington University undergraduate Heather Chung works with Mark Rutherford, PhD, to test synapse loss. The Rutherford lab studies the smallest parts of the ear called synapses. Synapses are the sites of communication between two neurons or between a neuron and a sensory receptor cell. New biological imaging techniques have made these structures much easier to […]
Hair cells are the exquisitely sensitive and inexhaustible sensory receptors of the auditory and vestibular systems. They function by transducing mechanical stimuli, such as sound, into nerve impulses that transmit sensory information to the brain. Features of hair cells that make them incredibly effective detectors of sound also make them vulnerable to damage from noise […]
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received $10.5 million from the Department of the Army to investigate whether an anti-seizure drug can prevent noise-induced hearing loss when given several hours before exposure to extremely loud noise. Read more
If you wake up one morning with sudden deafness, experience dizziness as a result of Meniere’s disease, or if you have cochlear implant surgery, your doctor may choose to treat your ear with a locally applied drug. One limitation of this new approach is that most of the drugs in use have been repurposed from […]