Proteins long known to be essential for hearing have been hiding a talent: they also act as gatekeepers that shuffle fatty molecules across cell membranes. When this newly discovered function goes ...

For the first two weeks of life, mice with a hereditary form of deafness have nearly normal neural activity in the auditory system, according to a new study. Previous studies indicate that this early ...

Preventing noise-related hearing loss from a loud concert, a banging jackhammer or a rifle blast could be as simple as managing levels of zinc within the inner ear, a new study reports. Such hearing ...

Researchers at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders have identified a previously unknown mechanism that destroys the sensory hair cells of the inner ear, a discovery ...

Optical coherence tomography (OCT), a tool routinely used to diagnose and plan treatment for eye diseases, has now been modified to collect images of the inner ear. Subscribe to our newsletter for the ...

Autoimmune inner ear disease (AIED) is a complex condition in which the immune system aberrantly targets inner ear structures, leading to a fluctuating and often progressive sensorineural hearing loss ...

Hearing is made possible when hair bundles protruding from the tops of hair cells capture the energy of sound waves, converting them into electrical signals that stimulate the auditory nerve to the ...

The name of the ability to recognize and respond to such changes is hyperacusis. It is an over-sensitivity to sound that frequently occurs due to damage to the cochlea (cochlear origin) or the ...

A surprising new function of essential hearing proteins may explain why some genetic mutations and common antibiotics lead to permanent deafness.

The inner ear is divided into two fluid filled chambers - one inside the other. Figure 3 illustrates the basic organization of both the organs of hearing and balance. The fluid in the two chambers ...