Biomarkers of Brain Function May Lead to Clinical Tests for Hidden Hearing Loss

A study in eLife suggests two biomarkers of brain function could help determine why people with normal hearing may have difficulty following conversations in noisy environments, and possibly assist in developing next-generation clinical testing for this deficit, reports ScienceDaily . The researchers reviewed over 100,000 records covering 16 years, and found that approximately 10 percent of persons who visited an audiology clinic at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary complained of hearing difficulty, despite normal audiograms. Follow-up tests combined measurements of ear canal electroencephalogram signals with changes in eye pupil diameter, which enabled the investigators to identify subjects that struggled to follow speech. "If our ability to converse in social settings is part of our hearing health, then the tests that are used have to go beyond the very first stages of hearing and more directly measure auditory processing in the brain," said Harvard Medical School Professor Daniel B. Polley.