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Tag: hearing

  • Wayne State receives $1.7 million NIH award to understand and address ototoxic side effects of anti-cancer drug

    Wayne State receives $1.7 million NIH award to understand and address ototoxic side effects of anti-cancer drug

    Newswise — DETROIT – A Wayne State University researcher has received a $1.7 million, five-year award from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health for the study, “Targeting nitrative stress for treatment of cisplatin ototoxicity.” The research aims to address the critical gap that exists in understanding how nitrative stress caused by cisplatin treatment alters cochlear protein signaling causing apoptosis – or death of cells – in cisplatin-induced ototoxicity.

    The study, led by Samson Jamesdaniel, Ph.D., assistant professor of family medicine and public health in Wayne State’s School of Medicine and in the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, stated that cisplatin and its analogs are prescribed to 10 to 20% of all cancer patients, causing hearing loss in up to 80% treated with the drug.

    “Cisplatin is a first-generation platinum-based anti-neoplastic drug that is the backbone of combination therapies to treat cancers of the bladder, cervix, lung [non-small cell], head and neck [squamous cell], testicle, mesothelium and some other solid tumors,” said Jamesdaniel. “The ototoxicity caused by treatments using cisplatin can significantly affect the quality of life in cancer survivors and lead to devastating consequences in children, with impacts on speech and language development, education and social integration.”

    Cisplatin-induced nitration and downregulation of LMO4, a molecular adaptor protein, appears to mediate its ototoxic effects. Jamesdaniel and his research team hope to better understand the characterization of the regulatory role of LMO4 nitration in cisplatin-mediated ototoxicity that may reveal the biological significance of this novel molecular mechanism.

    “The outcomes of this research will have important translational value by providing a strong foundation for identifying and developing novel therapeutic approaches to prevent the ototoxic effects of cisplatin,” said Timothy Stemmler, Ph.D., interim vice president for research at Wayne State. “Samson’s important research may lead to an effective intervention for cisplatin-induced ototoxicity that will improve lives of cancer survivors who have received this treatment.”

    The project number for this National Institutes of Health study is DC020299. To learn more, visit https://reporter.nih.gov/search/BwG81rDmTEKfb7HqEjgC-g/project-details/10587579

     

    About Wayne State University

    Wayne State University is one of the nation’s pre-eminent public research universities in an urban setting. Through its multidisciplinary approach to research and education, and its ongoing collaboration with government, industry and other institutions, the university seeks to enhance economic growth and improve the quality of life in the city of Detroit, state of Michigan and throughout the world. For more information about research at Wayne State University, visit research.wayne.edu.

    Wayne State University Division of Research

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  • Rats bop to the beat

    Rats bop to the beat

    Newswise — Accurately moving to a musical beat was thought to be a skill innately unique to humans. However, new research now shows that rats also have this ability. The optimal tempo for nodding along was found to depend on the time constant in the brain (the speed at which our brains can respond to something), which is similar across all species. This means that the ability of our auditory and motor systems to interact and move to music may be more widespread among species than previously thought. This new discovery offers not only further insight into the animal mind, but also into the origins of our own music and dance. 

    Can you move to the beat, or do you have two left feet? Apparently, how well we can time our movement to music depends somewhat on our innate genetic ability, and this skill was previously thought to be a uniquely human trait. While animals also react to hearing noise, or might make rhythmic sounds, or be trained to respond to music, this isn’t the same as the complex neural and motor processes that work together to enable us to naturally recognize the beat in a song, respond to it or even predict it. This is referred to as beat synchronicity.

    Only relatively recently, research studies (and home videos) have shown that some animals seem to share our urge to move to the groove. A new paper by a team at the University of Tokyo provides evidence that rats are one of them. “Rats displayed innate — that is, without any training or prior exposure to music — beat synchronization most distinctly within 120-140 bpm (beats per minute), to which humans also exhibit the clearest beat synchronization,” explained Associate Professor Hirokazu Takahashi from the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology. “The auditory cortex, the region of our brain that processes sound, was also tuned to 120-140 bpm, which we were able to explain using our mathematical model of brain adaptation.”

    But why play music to rats in the first place? “Music exerts a strong appeal to the brain and has profound effects on emotion and cognition. To utilize music effectively, we need to reveal the neural mechanism underlying this empirical fact,” said Takahashi. “I am also a specialist of electrophysiology, which is concerned with electrical activity in the brain, and have been studying the auditory cortex of rats for many years.”

    The team had two alternate hypotheses: The first was that the optimal music tempo for beat synchronicity would be determined by the time constant of the body. This is different between species and much faster for small animals compared to humans (think of how quickly a rat can scuttle). The second was that the optimal tempo would instead be determined by the time constant of the brain, which is surprisingly similar across species. “After conducting our research with 20 human participants and 10 rats, our results suggest that the optimal tempo for beat synchronization depends on the time constant in the brain,” said Takahashi. “This demonstrates that the animal brain can be useful in elucidating the perceptual mechanisms of music.”

    The rats were fitted with wireless, miniature accelerometers, which could measure the slightest head movements. Human participants also wore accelerometers on headphones. They were then played one-minute excerpts from Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major, K. 448, at four different tempos: Seventy-five percent, 100%, 200% and 400% of the original speed. The original tempo is 132 bpm and results showed that the rats’ beat synchronicity was clearest within the 120-140 bpm range. The team also found that both rats and humans jerked their heads to the beat in a similar rhythm, and that the level of head jerking decreased the more that the music was sped up.

    “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on innate beat synchronization in animals that was not achieved through training or musical exposure,” said Takahashi. “We also hypothesized that short-term adaptation in the brain was involved in beat tuning in the auditory cortex. We were able to explain this by fitting our neural activity data to a mathematical model of the adaptation. Furthermore, our adaptation model showed that in response to random click sequences, the highest beat prediction performance occurred when the mean interstimulus interval (the time between the end of one stimulus and the start of another) was around 200 milliseconds (one-thousandth of a second). This matched the statistics of internote intervals in classical music, suggesting that the adaptation property in the brain underlies the perception and creation of music.”

    As well as being a fascinating insight into the animal mind and the development of our own beat synchronicity, the researchers also see it as an insight into the creation of music itself. “Next, I would like to reveal how other musical properties such as melody and harmony relate to the dynamics of the brain. I am also interested in how, why and what mechanisms of the brain create human cultural fields such as fine art, music, science, technology and religion,” said Takahashi. “I believe that this question is the key to understand how the brain works and develop the next-generation AI (artificial intelligence). Also, as an engineer, I am interested in the use of music for a happy life.”

    ####

    Paper Title:

    Yoshiki Ito, Tomoyo Isoguchi Shiramatsu, Naoki Ishida, Karin Oshima, Kaho Magami, Hirokazu Takahashi. Spontaneous beat synchronization in rats: Neural dynamics and motor entrainment. Science Advances 8, eabo7019 (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abo7019

    Funding: 

    This work was supported in part by JSPS KAKENHI (20H04252, 21H05807) and JST Moonshot R & D program (JPMJMS2296).

    Useful Links:

    Graduate School of Information Science and Technology: https://www.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/index_e.shtml

    Hirokazu Takahashi Lab: http://www.ne.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/index-e.html  

    About the University of Tokyo
    The University of Tokyo is Japan’s leading university and one of the world’s top research universities. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world’s top journals across the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of around 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 4,000 international students. Find out more at www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/ or follow us on Twitter at @UTokyo_News_en.

    University of Tokyo

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  • Fetterman’s Recovery Highlights Road Back From Stroke

    Fetterman’s Recovery Highlights Road Back From Stroke

    Oct. 21, 2022 – John Fetterman, Democratic candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania, is recovering well from a stroke he had in late spring, according to a medical report from his primary care doctor. 

    In his evaluation of Fetterman, Clifford Chen, MD, concluded that “he has no work restrictions and can work full duty in public office.” Fetterman is currently lieutenant governor. 

    But Chen also noted that the Senate candidate has exhibited symptoms of an auditory processing disorder that can cause hearing difficulties. While this means that Fetterman doesn’t always properly process words spoken aloud, his communication skills have reportedly improved significantly since his first speech therapy appointment. 

    Fetterman had what’s known as an ischemic stroke, the most common type. Nearly 87% of all strokes are ischemic, meaning there is an artery blockage that prevents blood flow to the brain. 

    Though we don’t have many more details about his stroke, Lee Schwamm, MD, a vascular neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston says that, given his symptoms, it’s likely that Fetterman experienced a blockage in his middle cerebral artery. And if Fetterman is right-handed, Schwamm says, his language systems live in the left side of his brain, so the stroke would have been in the left-middle cerebral artery in particular. 

    For recent interviews, Fetterman has relied on visual aids like a teleprompter and closed captioning, and plans to do the same for an upcoming debate against his opponent, Republican Mehmet Oz, who is a board-certified heart surgeon. Oz has been particularly vocal about Fetterman’s health in the wake of his stroke, going so far as to suggest that the candidate’s wife might have to serve as Senator in his place. 

    But experts see that as a likely exaggeration.

    “In general, patients who have a mild receptive language difficulty don’t have any change in IQ – their cognitive abilities are not altered,” says Gregory Albers, MD, neurologist and director of Stanford University’s Stroke Center. He added that, after a stroke, patients can have a recovery that lasts over a long period of time. 

    “Although the most rapid recovery happens in the first few months, continued recovery is expected over many months,” Albers says. 

    Schwamm says that a political debate – or any forum that requires more on-the-fly thinking and communication – will be the best measure of his abilities. But he doesn’t expect that Fetterman will function at his highest level of performance during a debate setting, which can be stressful for anyone, stroke or not. 

    Also, Schwamm, says, we have many senators and representatives who need assistive devices like canes or wheelchairs, are on medication for heart disease, or have some degree of dementia – but we don’t block them from political life or remove them for office for their health conditions. 

    “Accommodation is not weakness, accommodation is a mechanism for leveling the playing field so that people can perform at their highest levels,” says Schwamm. “We have to embrace the fact that people process information differently, even if you’ve never had a stroke. What matters is the product of their work, not the method of their work.” 

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  • Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids: Research, Then Shop

    Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids: Research, Then Shop

    Oct. 21, 2022 – This past Monday was the long-anticipated debut of over-the-counter hearing aids, the day they could be sold at stores, pharmacies, and online after the FDA signed off on these less expensive options that require no health care professional’s input. 

    What could be simpler? Just pick up that hearing aid you’ve been needing on your next Walmart run.

    Several devices are now available, but the party isn’t in full swing yet, it appears. A quick spot check on Wednesday and Thursday at a Best Buy, CVS, Walmart, and Walgreens about 10 miles from downtown Los Angeles found no OTC hearing aid devices on the shelves, with store personnel suggesting a visit to their websites or to check other, larger stores. Many of the prices, listed online, are higher than earlier estimates of $300 to $500. And reading and understanding the product information can take some education.

    Even so, hearing loss professionals – and probably countless spouses and friends tired of hearing “Huh?” – applaud the move, noting that this more affordable hearing help is sorely needed by many. About 37.5 million American adults report some trouble hearing, but only about one-fifth of people who could benefit from a hearing aid use one, the FDA says. Expense is a big reason, although the stigma of needing a hearing aid can play in, too. And device makers say by month’s end, more models will be in stores. 

    Before shopping, here’s what to know and where to turn for help. 

    Hearing Experts On Board

    Hearing experts, including audiologists and doctors who are hearing specialists (ENTs or otolaryngologists), favor the option of OTC devices, if people don’t misjudge their hearing loss. 

    “I think it’s great to have multiple pathways [to treat hearing loss],” says Catherine Palmer, PhD, director of audiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and chair of the American Academy of Audiology OTC Resources Task Force. “This is going to be a positive for some.”

    Who Could Be Helped?

    OTC hearing aids are not for severe hearing loss, and they aren’t meant for children. They work best and are meant for adults with mild to moderate hearing loss.  

    “We know people aren’t accurate in judging their own hearing loss,” Palmer says. 

    o decide how extreme your hearing loss is, experts say those with mild to moderate hearing loss  have trouble understanding conversation when in a group, in a place with background noise, or when they can’t see who’s talking. They may need to turn up the television or radio loud — at a high enough volume that other people notice it’s too loud. They may have trouble talking on the phone, and they may often ask others to repeat what they said.

    But you need a hearing professional if you have trouble hearing in a quiet environment or can’t hear loud sounds such as cars or power tools.

    Should you try those online hearing tests first? (Google “online hearing tests” and you get 241 million results.) Some experts say it can’t hurt, but others say they are unreliable and to get a test from a professional.

    A few other red flags: If you have ear pain, pus, or blood coming from the ear, excess earwax, sudden hearing loss, or loss in one ear only, see a hearing professional. 

    “You have to make sure there isn’t a medical cause for your hearing loss,” says Douglas Backous, MD, a neurotologist at Puget Sound ENT Proliance Surgeons in Seattle and president-elect of the American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.  

    OTC Hearing Aid Options

    Some of the over-the-counter hearing aids are “self-fitting,” requiring an app or accessory that develops a program based on your responses to some signals; others have preset programs, a simpler option, and users can choose the best or switch back and forth between the programs.

    Models include behind-the-ear, in-the-ear, and in-the-canal, depending on preference. Those who wear glasses might not prefer the behind-the-ear model, experts say. Those who want it as inconspicuous as possible may prefer in-the-canal.

    Among the many OTC devices: 

    • Lexie B1, Powered by Bose, is self-fitting and is $849.
    • Eargo Max has four sound programs to switch back and forth to; $1,450.
    • Jabra Enhance Plus has a variety of modes; $799.

    Costs

    The OTC devices are expected to cost about $200 to $1,000, compared to $5,000 and higher for prescription devices, according to the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, which counts device makers among its members.

    OTC devices are unlikely to be covered by insurance, says Palmer, noting that the hearing industry is still fighting for more comprehensive coverage of prescription hearing aids.

    More Smart Shopping:

    Check the return policy for any device, says Anita Brikman, executive director of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association Educational Foundation, a nonprofit group. It should be listed on the labeling. She and others recommend at least 30 days. Some device makers offer much longer.

    It may take time to get used to the device, and adjustments may be needed.

    Check to see if companies offer more support, Brikman says, such as online help or a toll-free number, and check the hours they can be reached.

    Several organizations offer online information about OTC hearing aids, including:

    Buying online doesn’t rule out the need for an audiologist or ENT doctor. If an OTC device isn’t working properly, experts suggest taking it to an audiologist and asking for an adjustment. “Before you give up, go get a formal evaluation,” Backous says.

    And even though it isn’t required before getting an OTC device, “It is still recommended that people get some sort of hearing test,” Brikman says. Insurance may cover the cost of the test.

    Improved Hearing, Better Health

    Hearing loss is linked with many ill effects on health, including less socializing because you miss out on conversations. Hearing loss can also boost the risk of falls.

    But it’s also been linked with an increased risk of dementia. Recent research has found it is one of the top risk factors for dementia — and it can be changed.

    What Aren’t OTC Hearing Aids

    Googling “over the counter hearing aids” brings up a variety of devices, including personal sound amplification products or PSAPs. These are meant not for hearing loss, but to help boost the ability to hear certain sounds in certain situations, such as while bird-watching.

    “These are regulated as consumer electronics, but not for hearing loss,” Brikman says.

    Deciphering the FDA Terms, Device Labels

    The FDA regulates OTC hearing aids as medical devices and requires OTC hearing aid makers to have a maximum output or volume on the devices to prevent injuries from boosting the sound too much. Devices must also have distortion control limits, noise limits, and limits on how quickly they process, amplify, and relay a sound. There are requirements on the range of frequencies and the insertion depth of the device. 

    According to an FDA spokesperson, OTC hearing aids makers must register their facilities with the FDA, list their devices with the FDA, and have clearance or approval, as appropriate for the device type .

    The new hearing aid category has been in the works since 2017, when the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017 was passed as a rider on the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017.  In July, President Joe Biden issued an executive order calling for the FDA to take steps to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter and included a timeline for action. The rule establishing the OTC hearing aids became effective Oct. 17.

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  • Earlens Shares FDA Historical Ruling on OTC Hearing Aids

    Earlens Shares FDA Historical Ruling on OTC Hearing Aids

    Press Release
    –


    updated: Sep 6, 2022


    MENLO PARK, Calif., September 6, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Earlens, a privately held medical technology company transforming the way people hear with a new class of non-surgical hearing technology, supports the FDA’s ruling to create a new category of Over the Counter (OTC) hearing aids. Hearing loss, a medical epidemic associated with dementia, depression and social isolation, affects an estimated 30 million people in the United States. Despite the high prevalence and public health impact of hearing loss, only about one-fifth of people who could benefit from a hearing aid seek intervention.

    While this new ruling may address a few of the barriers that impede the adoption of hearing aids, such as perceived hearing benefit relative to price and access, it will not address the top two complaints of hearing aid users: understanding speech in background noise and sound quality. The new over-the-counter hearing aids work in the same way as the traditional hearing aids widely available by prescription today. They amplify sound through a tiny speaker in a limited bandwidth. Unlike traditional hearing aids, Earlens works with the natural hearing system by gently vibrating the eardrum via a tiny, custom-built lens, which delivers 2.5X the audible bandwidth of traditional hearing aids, resulting in significantly better speech understanding in noise and improved clarity. 

    “With the changing landscape in the hearing space, Earlens is well positioned to assist the many people that are dissatisfied with traditional air-conduction hearing aids, whether they are purchased in a store, through a dispenser, or over the counter. Earlens’ differentiated technology and unique care model places highly trained hearing healthcare professionals at the forefront of hearing loss treatment. Earlens is committed to transforming the hearing experience for millions of people who suffer from hearing loss”, said Bill Facteau, Earlens President & Chief Executive Officer.

    About Earlens

    Earlens is a privately held medical technology company that has developed the Earlens® hearing solution. With more than 185 US and international patents, Earlens was named to Time Magazine’s list of the top 100 inventions of 2020. Earlens is exclusively available from a growing network of highly trained Ear, Nose & Throat physicians and audiologists who are supported by a dedicated concierge team. For more information, please visit www.earlens.com.

    Contact

    Connon Samuel

    Chief Operating Officer

    1-844-234-LENS (5367)

    Source: Earlens

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