Asymmetric Ear Function Leads to Lopsided Brain Development
Hearing care professionals are aware of the right ear advantage, and recently it received renewed attention from James Jerger in the Hearing Review. Another recent report, one published in open access journal PLOS Biology, sheds additional light on these differences between ears. In a multi-national study published March 13, Michelle Antoine, Jean Hébert, and…
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VEST is designed to allow deaf people to feel what speakers are saying
By David H. Kirkwood HOUSTON—David Eagleman, PhD, and his graduate student Scott Novich at Baylor College of Medicine are working alongside a team of engineering undergraduates at Rice University to develop a high-tech garment known as the VEST (Versatile Extra-Sensory Transducer) that would enable people who are deaf in both ears to understand speech…
Read MoreHumans’ biological battery may someday power implantable hearing devices
CAMBRIDGE, MA—As long as people have been using hearing aids, replacing the batteries has been part of the drill. However, someday—though no time soon—people may power their own hearing devices, at least implantable ones. How can that be? Well, people and other mammals have a natural battery located inside the cochlea. It’s a chamber filled…
Read MoreBrain Award will honor two women who have discovered genetic causes of deafness
COPENHAGEN–Two researchers who have done groundbreaking work in discovering genetic factors in hearing and deafness will share the 2012 Brain Award, presented by the Grete Lundbeck European Brain Research Foundation. They are Christine Petit, chair of genetics and cellular physiology at College de France and head of the Genetics and Physiology of Hearing Laboratory at the Institut Pasteur…
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