Sound advice

• Autores: Dana Mackenzie
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3030, 2015, págs. 36-38
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The idea that the brain is behind the hidden hearing loss opens up a whole new way of treating it. A number of computer programs now promise to enhance the brain's auditory machinery from the comfort of one's home. Hearing aids and cochlear implants are designed to treat this kind of impairment, and they can be very successful. But in recent years, neuroscientists have turned their attention to the next step in sound processing--the auditory nerve fibres that pass the hair cells' signals to the brain. Their work has revealed that loud noises can cause a shocking amount of damage to these nerves. More specifically, it's the connections, or synapses, between the hair cells and the auditory nerves that are destroyed, a problem known as synaptopathy. The hair cells themselves remain. The loss of these connections means the brain processes sounds more slowly and samples them more infrequently, which makes it much harder to decipher different letters, especially those that sound similar. Here, Mackenzie determines whether the brain-training software could help people hear better.