About the Researcher

Jennifer Krizman is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. As a member of the Auditory Neuroscience Lab, her primary research interest is studying how experience influences cortical and subcortical neural processing of sounds, especially speech. She hopes to translate this work into improvements in human communication. Krizman specializes in the use of the frequency-following response (FFR), an objective electrophysiological measure of sound processing originating primarily in the inferior colliculus of the auditory midbrain.

About the Research

Identifying the auditory mechanisms supporting speech-in-noise and accented-speech recognition in middle-aged listeners with and without sensorineural hearing loss
Communication rarely takes place in pristine listening conditions. Environmental noise and accented speech by a non-native talker are two things that can degrade a talker’s message before it even reaches the listener’s ears. This study aims to understand how middle-aged listeners (ages 30 to 50), with and without hearing loss, recognize speech in noise compared to accented speech. Middle aged listeners with and without hearing loss will be tested, rather than older adults, to avoid confounding issues such as cognitive decline. Learning more about the mechanisms that support how we recognize speech in a noisy environment or how we understand accented speech will be important for hearing aid development. Study results also may help us provide tailored support and targeted treatment strategies for listeners when speech-recognition difficulties emerge.

About the Researcher

Christopher Mularczyk is a resident in the Department of Otolaryngology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his M.D. with honors from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research has focused on new surgical techniques in otolaryngology, and their potential outcomes. His interests include otology and pediatric otolaryngology.

About the Research

Temporal and Spectral Manipulation and Vocal Pitch Perception in Cochlear Implant Users
Cochlear implant (CI) users have difficulties with tasks that require them to identify vocal pitch such as distinguishing questions and statements, identifying vocal emotion, and determining speaker gender. Understanding the cues that CI users utilize for pitch perception is critical for developing approaches to improve vocal pitch perception. In this study, CI users will compare pairs of voices through a range of varied pitches. The stimuli will consist of unaltered, temporally manipulated, spectrally manipulated, and spectral-temporally manipulated stimuli. This will allow us to observe the range of pitch that each manipulated stimuli condition provides compared to the original unaltered stimuli. We hypothesize that providing spectral information for a stimulus, alone or with temporal modulations, will affect vocal pitch perception and that temporal and spectral cues both contribute to CI users’ vocal pitch perception. These findings would provide critical information to help develop techniques to improve CI users’ vocal pitch perception.

About the Researcher

Suhrud Rajguru is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Otolaryngology at the University of Miami and co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Restor-Ear Devices. His research focuses on the investigations of pathophysiology, the diagnosis, and treatment of various hearing and balance disorders. His research is supported by the National Institutes of Health and industry partners and he is actively involved in the education and mentoring of residents, fellows, undergraduate, medical, and graduate students. He completed his undergraduate studies in Mumbai, India prior to pursuing doctoral studies at the University of Utah.

About the Research

Combinatorial therapy for preventing noise-induced cochlear synaptopathy and hearing loss
Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) results from damage caused to the sensitive structures and neural elements in the cochlea by exposures to loud sounds. Recent studies have led to new insights into the pathophysiology, clinical findings, and social and economic impacts of NIHL. Despite significant health burden of NIHL, currently there is no effective therapy for NIHL. In our study, we want to develop and test a new combination therapy to protect sensitive neural structures and preserve hearing in a preclinical model. We hypothesize that hypothermia can be applied quickly following noise exposure, and modulates protective mechanisms in the cochlea. An additive, cell death pathway inhibitor can be combined with the cooling to further improve hearing protection. We will test and optimize parameters of hypothermia and drug combination, an approach that carries high potential for rapid translation to the clinic.

About the Researcher

Dr. Renauld received her Ph.D. from the University of Liege (Belgium) in 2017 for her work on the development of the cytoskeleton in the supporting cells of the organ of Corti. She is now completing her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Martin Basch at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. Her current work is focused on the development of a cell therapy to replace the missing intermediate cells in congenital strial deafness syndromes such as Waardenburg syndrome.

About the Research

Understanding the role of pigmented cells in Meniere’s disease
Meniere’s disease is characterized by the fluctuation of hearing and recurrent episodes of vertigo. These two symptoms affecting hearing and balance are due to an overflow of endolymph in the inner ear. In the auditory organ, the stria vascularis is responsible for endolymph production. For the balance organs, the dark cell zone is responsible for endolymph production. Several studies have shown that endolymph production is regulated by several hormones and one of the main triggers for the aggravation of Meniere’s disease symptoms is physical and emotional stress. We hypothesize that pigmented cells are good candidates to mediate a hormonal response. We will identify unique characteristics of those cells and analyze their response to hormones. This aim could uncover the role of specific hormones in the establishment of endolymphatic hydrops and the possible use of a treatment to alleviate the symptoms.

About the Researchers

Dwayne D. Simmons is a graduate of Pepperdine University and Harvard University. He is currently the Cornelia Marschall Smith Endowed Professor and Chair of the Department of Biology and professor in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Baylor University. He also holds an appointment as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Biomedical Science at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. His research focuses on the cellular and molecular mechanisms of auditory and vestibular function. Most recently, he has been investigating the role of calcium buffering and inflammatory pathways in hearing loss and restoration.

Mostafa Ahmed, MD, holds an appointment as Assistant Professor of Surgery at Uniformed Services University and Physician-Scientist through the RESTOR program at Lackland Air Force Base. He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis and University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. He completed Otolaryngology-Head and Neck surgery residency training at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio and is board certified. He currently practices at the Carl R Darnall Army Medical Center primarily focusing on chronic ear disease and surgery. His research interests are peripheral nerve regeneration and noise-induce hearing loss.

Dr. Bob Kane is Director of the Institute of Biomedical Studies and an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at Baylor University. He received the PhD degree in Organic Chemistry from Texas Tech followed by an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship at UCLA, and joined the faculty at Baylor in 1996. The Kane research group applies synthetic organic chemistry to biological challenges. Recent work is focused on innovative approaches for the delivery of immunomodulators, including the development of prodrugs and novel uses of bioconjugate chemistry, to address challenging problems in wound healing and transplantation.

About the Research

Mitigating Noise-Induced Inflammatory Responses in the Inner Ear
As many as 24% of adults under the age of 70 and 17% of teens (ages 12 – 19) may have noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). Hearing loss impairs not only the ability to communicate, but also increases social isolation, is linked to risk of dementia and depression, and costs the U.S. economy an estimated $152 billon. Although we have made substantial progress in research on NIHL, we still know comparatively little about its underlying causes. Our research investigates defects in calcium signalling within cochlear sensory cells that augment pro-inflammatory pathways and lead to loss of nerve cell connections, cellular stress and eventually, sensory cell loss. We have developed a mouse model with defective calcium signalling in a subset of sensory cells. We will use this model to explore the progression of NIHL and targeted ways to delay or prevent hair cell loss associated with NIHL.

About the Researcher

Terrin N. Tamati, PhD, is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. She is a native of Salem, Ohio, and completed her undergraduate degree in Linguistics at Ohio State University. Dr. Tamati received her PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University, where she was trained in phonetics and psycholinguistics. She then went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at the University Medical Center Groningen in Groningen, Netherlands, where she researched speech perception in cochlear implant users. Dr. Tamati’s research focuses on the linguistic, cognitive, and perceptual skills necessary for listeners to understand speech in real-world, challenging environments.

About the Research

Investigating the Impact of Social Networks on Speech Recognition Outcomes and Quality of Life in Adults with Cochlear Implants – A Study Using an Online Testing Protocol
Cochlear implants are auditory prosthetic devices that restore a sense of hearing to profoundly deaf individuals. Despite the overall success of cochlear implants, enormous individual differences in adult cochlear implant users’ speech understanding abilities are observed in clinical centers around the world. This project will evaluate how cochlear implant users’ everyday auditory experience contributes to speech communication success. In particular, using an online protocol, we will assess cochlear implant users’ experience with speech variability originating from diverse talkers, by examining their social networks and communication practices. We will evaluate the potential benefits of increased experience with speech variability on the ability to understand speech and quality of life. Findings will identify real-world factors contributing to individual differences in outcomes in adult cochlear implant users, which will allow us to better account for them in clinical settings.

About the Researcher

Dr. Yee is an Assistant Professor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi. She received her BA in Neurobiology from the University of California, Berkeley and her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. She spent two years of her doctoral work studying at Cambridge University. Her research interests center on sensory system development and function. She recently has begun exploring the biomedical impacts of both physical trauma and disease on structure/function aspects of the peripheral and central auditory system. For example, her work examining the effects of Zika virus infection on the inner ear was recently published (Yee, et al, 2020).

About the Research

Effects of mild traumatic brain injury on the mammalian cochlea
Despite clear otological symptoms, little is known of the consequences on hearing that are induced by mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI), also known as concussion. The major goals of this project are to examine the consequences of mTBI on 1) the ability to hear and 2) inflammation in the cochlea in the young and females, two under-represented populations in the research field of mTBI. The absence of research on these populations is significant since young individuals that engage in contact recreational activities such as organized tackle football are at risk for head traumas. Likewise, 4.8 million females in the United States suffer from forms of intimate partner violence annually. Of these women, 1.6 million women suffer multiple TBI’s each year. Our proposed project aims to model the effects of mTBI on the young and in females to fill a gap in an area of needed research.