Research Science Doesn’t Stop

Science Doesn’t Stop >> >> >> “In order to keep our work going at home during the pandemic lockdown, I set up my music room into a microscope room. The music stand “Although the pandemic effectively put a halt to all experimental work in my lab, it struck at a time where we had just finished the final “I am tremendously grateful that I am able to tell my postdocs who receive funding through our HRP/HHFfunded project that they do not have For Hearing Health Foundation researchers, the nationwide COVID-19 lockdown presented challenges as well as opportunities for creativity. makes a handy slide display for my round of our two-photon imaging to worry. Most of our lab members Emerging Research Grants (ERG) experiments, generously funded by do not have local family ties—their project investigating hyperacusis. my Emerging Research Grant. Given families are far away, out of state, Also taking place in my musical the large datasets we collect in these and in other countries. The personal microscope room are recordings for experiments—hundreds of gigabytes— level of stress that some individuals our #QuarantineBand performances data analyses often take longer than have to deal with at this time is truly that we record and upload to data collection! So my team and unprecedented. All of our funding YouTube.” —2019 ERG scientist Gail I have been performing our data agencies have been exemplary Seigel, Ph.D. (above), University at analyses remotely, from in supporting us, which provides Buffalo, State University of New York the comfort of our own homes, important financial stability, security with more than enough data to of a place to live, and an environment keep us busy for a while.” —2019 where working from home is actually ERG scientist Pierre Apostolides, possible. Thank you and HHF’s Ph.D., Kresge Hearing Institute, supporters for this!” —Hearing University of Michigan Restoration Project member Stefan Heller, Ph.D., Stanford University

Hearing Health Foundation (HHF) improves the lives of people with hearing loss and related conditions by funding research, connecting researchers, publicizing new findings, raising awareness about hearing loss, and promoting hearing health.

Complex and interconnected, hearing loss and its variants impact speech processing, brain function, cognition, interpersonal relationships, psychological well-being, and quality of life. HHF’s advances in one aspect or disease-specific area of hearing often benefit many others, creating pathways to better prevention methods, treatments, and cures .

Fundamental studies of inner ear hair cell function may shed light on these mechanisms: how hearing loss occurs, how balance is disturbed, how tinnitus is generated, how the brain processes sound and speech, and how cognitive decline accelerates. As a consequence, advancing knowledge in one area of research benefits many related areas and promotes novel therapies.

Breakthroughs in understanding sensorineural hearing loss also enlighten studies on tinnitus, hyperacusis, and auditory processing disorders because the biological systems that are involved— the inner ear, the brainstem, and parts of the brain such as the auditory cortex—are shared. Developing new means to deliver therapeutic drugs to the inner ear across the blood-labyrinth barrier may lead to discoveries about that barrier that help scientists prevent damage to hearing as a side effect of other drugs (ototoxicity) or of infection.

Work on the role of neural circuits in the auditory processing of speech may improve our understanding of hyperacusis, as these same neural circuits play a role in the brain’s sensitivity to sound.

Discovering how to regenerate inner ear hair cells to restore hearing may also help medical researchers and clinicians treat tinnitus, which is often caused by these hair cells “mis-signaling” the brain.