MONDAY, June 17 (HealthDay News) -- A new brain-imaging study could help explain why children with autism have difficulty with verbal communication: They may not get much pleasure from the human voice.

Researchers found that those with the disorder showed weaker connections between the brain's voice-processing areas and its "reward" centers compared to those without.

That suggests that kids with autism do not get the same pleasure from the human voice that typically developing children do, researchers said.

"When we speak, we don't only convey information, we convey emotion and social cues," said Daniel Abrams, a researcher at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., who led the new study.

It's well known that children with autism have difficulty reading those cues and having conversations. And children with more severe autism may be completely indifferent to the sound of the human voice.

There are competing theories on why that is, Abrams said. "One theory is that, although these children have normal hearing, there's a problem in the brain's sound processing," he explained.

Another theory is that "social cues," including other people's speech, don't hit the brain's reward system in the typical way. "Our findings support this idea," Abrams said. "There may be some deficit in the brain circuitry related to reward."

The findings, published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are based on a type of brain imaging called functional MRI, which allows researchers to measure brain activity by watching changes in blood flow.

The investigators took scans of 20 children who were on average 10 years old and had "high-functioning" autism: all had normal IQs and speaking and reading skills, but had trouble conversing and grasping "emotional cues" in other people's voices. The researchers also scanned 19 kids without autism who were in the same age and IQ range.

The researchers found that the children with autism showed a weaker connection between an area of the brain that responds to the human voice and two other brain regions that release the "feel-good" chemical dopamine in response to rewards.

On top of that, there was a weaker link between the brain's voice processors and the amygdala -- a brain region involved in emotion, including the ability to perceive emotional cues from others.

An expert not involved in the work said the findings give more insight into the underpinnings of autism, which affects an estimated one in 50 U.S. kids aged 6 to 17, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This is an elegant approach to using neuroimaging to better understand [autism]," said Dr. Andrew Adesman, chief of developmental and behavioral pediatrics at Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, in New Hyde Park.

What's unclear, Adesman added, is whether the impaired brain connectivity is actually a cause of the children's difficulties with conversations and socializing.

He noted that it's "likely" that weaker brain connections came first, but there's no way to tell for sure from this study.

"The natural next step," Adesman added, "is to try to replicate these findings in further studies, and to expand the research to include younger kids."

Adesman said he does not see the findings as being "immediately" useful in terms of autism therapies or diagnosis (such as using functional MRI scans to spot connectivity problems in the brain).

But, according to Abrams and colleagues, the findings lend some support to autism therapies already in use.

One example is known as pivotal-response training, which tries to motivate kids who can speak but do not usually converse with others, to engage in more "social" talk.

One limit of the study is that all of the children with autism were "high-functioning." But autism is considered a "spectrum" disorder whose effects range widely: Some people have mild problems socializing but have normal to above-normal intelligence; others have profound difficulties relating to others, and may have intellectual impairment as well.

It's not certain, Abrams said, that the same brain connectivity patterns would be seen across the autism spectrum.

More information

Learn more about autism from the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

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TUESDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly all adult survivors of childhood cancer have at least one chronic health problem, according to a new study.

Many of these health conditions are believed to be linked to treatments used to combat the survivors' childhood cancer, such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy.

Researchers examined data from more than 1,700 adults who were diagnosed with childhood cancer between 1962 and 2001 and underwent health assessments between 2007 and 2012. The analysis revealed that 98 percent of the patients had a chronic health condition.

About 95 percent of the patients had a chronic health problem by age 45, or 35 years after cancer diagnosis. More than three-quarters had a serious, disabling or life-threatening condition at age 45.

The most common problems involved the lungs (65 percent), hearing (62 percent), endocrine or reproductive systems (62 percent), heart (56 percent) or declining mental ability (48 percent).

Liver, skeletal, kidney and blood problems were less common, according to the study, which was published in the June 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"The percentage of survivors with one or more chronic health conditions prevalent in a young-adult population was extraordinarily high," Dr. Melissa Hudson, of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the University of Tennessee College of Medicine in Memphis, said in a hospital news release.

The researchers said their findings highlight the need to monitor childhood cancer survivors for conditions that can cause significant illness if not detected and treated early -- such as second cancers and heart disease -- as well as conditions that can be treated to improve quality of life, such as hearing and vision problems.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about the late effects of childhood cancer treatment.

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TUESDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) -- Straining to catch the gist of conversations is frustrating enough, but a new study shows that seniors with hearing loss are also at increased risk for hospitalization, illness, injury and depression.

Researchers analyzed data from more than 1,100 American men and women aged 70 and older with hearing loss, and found that over a four-year period they were 32 percent more likely to have been admitted to the hospital than more than 500 adults with normal hearing.

Hearing-impaired seniors were also 36 percent more likely to have prolonged stretches (more than 10 days) of illness or injury and 57 percent more likely to have extended episodes (more than 10 days) of stress, depression or bad mood, according to the study, published online June 11 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"Hearing loss may have a profoundly detrimental effect on older people's physical and mental well-being, and even health care resources," said study senior investigator Dr. Frank Lin, an otologist and assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health.

"Our results underscore why hearing loss should not be considered an inconsequential part of aging, but an important issue for public health," Lin said in a Hopkins news release.

Hearing deficits can lead to social isolation, which in turn contribute to physical and mental declines, Lin said.

Hearing loss affects as many as 27 million Americans over age 50, including two-thirds of men and women aged 70 years and older, according to Lin.

The study doesn't prove that being hard of hearing directly leads to other health problems, but it does show an association between the two. And health policymakers need to consider the broader health impact of hearing loss when making decisions for older people, study lead investigator Dr. Dane Genther, a resident in otolaryngology/head and neck surgery, said in the news release.

Genther's recommendations: expanded Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement for hearing-related health care services, wider installation of hearing loops in various facilities, and more accessible and affordable approaches for treating hearing loss.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging has more about hearing loss.

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The National Institute on Aging mentions these "assistive" devices that can help you hear better:

• A telephone-amplifying system.
• Headphones or similar systems for TV and radio that can avoid the need to crank up the volume or deal with background noise.
• Devices for your doorbell, alarm clock or smoke detectors that trigger vibrations or a visual alert when these things sound.

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FRIDAY, May 17 (HealthDay News) -- New research suggests the dominant side of your brain may make the call on which ear you choose to use while talking on your cellphone.

The dominant side of your brain is where your speech and language center resides. Ninety-five percent of the human population is left-brain dominant, and those people tend to be right-handed. The opposite holds true for people who are right-brain dominant. In this study, scientists found that roughly 70 percent of those surveyed held their cellphone up to the ear that was on the same side as their dominant hand.

This insight into the way people use their cellphones could one day help doctors quickly and safely locate and protect a patient's language center before beginning a potentially risky brain operation, the researchers said.

"In essence, this could be used as a poor man's Wada test," said study author Dr. Michael Seidman, director of the division of otologic/neurotologic surgery at the Henry Ford Health System in West Bloomfield, Mich. "[The Wada test] is the standard test used today to determine exactly where a surgical patient's language center is located, which is critical information to have if you want to carefully preserve a person's language abilities.

"The Wada test is, however, invasive and risky," Seidman said. "But by looking at how a person uses their cellphone, which side they listen in to, you can get shorthand insight into brain dominance. It's not a foolproof guarantee, but I would say it's a pretty reliable and safe way of going about it."

Seidman and his colleagues reported their findings in the May issue of the journal JAMA Otolaryngology -- Head & Neck Surgery.

To explore how brain dominance may relate to cellphone handling, the authors sifted through more than 700 online surveys completed by people who were members of a web-based otology (hearing) discussion group, as well as those already undergoing Wada and MRI testing for various purposes.

Respondents were asked to give information regarding their cellphone habits, favored hand for executing various tasks (such as writing, throwing and cellphone handling) and any hearing-loss issues. Any history of brain, head or neck tumors also was noted.

Ninety percent of those polled were right-handed, and 68 percent used their right ear, 25 percent used their left ear and 7 percent used both ears.

The story was similar among the left-handed people: 72 percent used their left ear, 23 percent used their right ear and 5 percent used both ears.

The team concluded that there is an association between cellphone handling habits and brain dominance, with right-ear cellphone use typically indicating left-brain dominance, and vice versa.

"We're pretty confident in our results," Seidman said. "Basically, if your speech and language centers are in the left side of the brain -- which for most people they are -- a cellphone conversation is going to sound better in your right ear."

"The next question is if this information may help us figure out whether or not cellphone use is associated with cancer risk," he said.

On that front, Seidman suggested that, if there was such an association, there would be a much greater incidence of right-sided brain, head and neck cancer than currently is the case, given that nearly 80 percent of all people use their right ear to talk on their phones.

"But the question of cancer risk and cellphone use is very controversial," he said. "We just don't know yet. Much more work needs to be done."

Dr. Joe Verghese, a professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in New York City, suggested that it remains possible that other variables could influence the way people choose to handle their cellphones.

"This is certainly a very interesting study," Verghese said. "But it could also be that right-handed people, for example, simply reach for their cellphone with their dominant hand, and then naturally feel more comfortable continuing to keep it and use it on their right side because it would feel awkward to pick up a phone with your right hand and then switch it over to your left side.

"If that's the case, this could actually be about motor dominance more than auditory or language dominance," he said.

More information

For more on left- and right-brain dominance, visit the American Psychological Association.

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WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- Background noise in the operating room -- such as the sounds of surgical equipment, chatter or music -- can affect surgeons' ability to understand what is being said to them and might result in a breakdown of communication among surgical team members, according to a new study.

This is particularly worrisome since miscommunication is cited as a common reason for medical errors that could have been prevented, the study authors said. Surgeons have critical conversations during operations, and information on medications, dosing and blood supply could sound similar. The researchers emphasize that clear communication during surgical procedures is essential to ensure the safety of patients.

The study was published in the May issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

"The operating room is a very fast-paced, high-demand, all-senses-running-on-all-cylinders type of environment," study co-author Dr. Matthew Bush, an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Kentucky Medical Center, in Lexington, said in a journal news release. "To minimize errors of communication, it is essential that we consider very carefully the listening environment we are promoting in the operating room."

The researchers gave an example of a possible miscommunication: A request for heparin might be heard as "Hespan," an entirely different drug.

In conducting the study, the researchers simulated a noise environment similar to the noise levels found in an operating room. Fifteen surgeons with between one and 30 years of experience were tested on their ability to understand and repeat words under four different conditions: quiet, noise filtered through a surgical mask, background noise without music and background noise with music.

The surgeons were tested while performing a specific surgical task as well as when they were not engaged in a task.

Noise interfered with the surgeon's speech comprehension when the words spoken to them were unpredictable, the study showed. This interference with speech comprehension was worse when there was noise in the operating room.

Background music also impaired the surgeons' ability to understand what was said to them while they were performing a surgical task.

The researchers concluded that background noise in operating rooms could impair surgeons' ability to process what they hear, particularly when music is being played. The situation becomes even more problematic when surgical teams are trying to communicate critical and unpredictable information.

"Our main goal is to increase awareness that operating room noise does affect communication and that we should foster the best environment in which we can communicate better," Bush said. "This effort means that the surgical team needs to work diligently to create the safest environment possible, and that step may mean either turning the music off or down, or limiting background conversations or other things in the environment that could lead to communication errors and medical mistakes."

The researchers plan to continue their research on a larger scale and also examine the effects of operating room noise on anesthesiologists, nurses and surgeons who are hearing impaired.

"I think it's important to demonstrate the effect of environmental operating noise on communication on a variety of different players in the operating room setting," Bush said. "Another step from here is to not only see how noise affects our understanding of speech, but how it affects our tasks and how it affects our ability to perform surgical procedures efficiently and effectively."

More information

The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons has more about operating room distractions.

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THURSDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) -- Even the minor noise that fills everyday life, from the ring of a cell phone to the conversation that follows, may have short-term effects on heart function, a small new study suggests.

In the study of 110 adults equipped with portable heart monitors, researchers found that people's heart rate tended to climb as their noise exposure increased -- even when the noise remained below 65 decibels. That's about as loud as a normal conversation or laughter.

There was also a negative impact on people's heart rate "variability" -- a measure of the heart's adaptation to what is going on around you. Greater variability in the interval between heartbeats is better. When people are relaxed, the space between heartbeats is usually a bit longer as they exhale, and shorter as they inhale.

When people are stressed, however, some of that natural variation is lost. And studies have linked lesser heart rate variability to an increased risk of heart attack.

So does all of this mean you need to wear earplugs to protect your heart? Probably not, experts say.

For any one person, the effects of everyday noise on heart function may be small, said Charlotta Eriksson, a researcher at the Karolinska Institute, in Stockholm, Sweden. Eriksson was not involved in the study.

But since we are all exposed to noise, even a minor effect on heart health could be important on the broad "population level," said Eriksson, who has studied the effects of loud traffic -- from roads or airports -- on people's blood pressure and heart function.

Research has consistently found links between loud workplaces and an increased risk of heart disease, said Dr. Wenqi Gan, a researcher at North Shore-LIJ Health System's Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, in Manhasset, N.Y.

The evidence is more mixed when it comes to "community noise," like traffic sounds, said Gan, whose own research has found a connection.

He said the mixed results may be because it's difficult to weed out the effects of community noise on individuals. You might live in a noisy section of a big city, but have good, sound-muffling windows, for example.

"And some people are more sensitive to noise than others," Gan said. If noise affects the heart by stressing people out, he said, then your personal sensitivity to it would be important.

The new findings, reported in the May issue of the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, are based on 110 adults who wore portable devices that measured their heart activity and noise exposure during their normal daily routines.

What was "interesting," Eriksson said, is that lower-level noise seemed to curb activity in the parasympathetic nervous system -- the branch of the nervous system that acts as a "brake," lowering heart rate and relaxing the blood vessels, for example.

Louder noise, meanwhile, seemed to rev up the sympathetic nervous system -- the branch that boosts heart rate, constricts blood vessels and otherwise sends us into "fight or flight" mode.

The value of the findings is that they suggest a biological reason for why noise has been linked to ill heart effects, said Alexandra Schneider, one of the researchers in the Institute of Epidemiology at Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, in Germany, who worked on the study.

"Our main focus was to find a possible mechanism that could be responsible for the observed health effects in other studies," Schneider said.

The study was not designed to offer people advice on how much noise is "bad" for their hearts, she said.

Gan agreed. "This study is a first step in exploring the underlying biological mechanisms for the association between noise exposure and cardiovascular disease," he said. "We need more studies like this."

A big question, said study author Schneider, is whether the short-term effects of noise, repeated over time, ultimately affect heart health -- particularly for people who already have chronic medical conditions.

Although the study tied increased noise exposure to a rise in heart rate, it did not establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

More information

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has more information on noise pollution.

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TUESDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- Extremely premature infants are more likely to have mental and physical disabilities than full-term infants, but rates of such disabilities aren't rising, new research says.

The study included almost 500 children in Sweden who were born extremely premature (before 27 weeks of gestation) and assessed when they were 30 months old. The children, born between 2004 and 2007, were checked for disabilities such as cerebral palsy, impaired mental development, and vision and hearing problems.

Forty-two percent of extremely premature children had no disability (compared with 78 percent of full-term children), 31 percent had a mild disability, 16 percent had a moderate disability and 11 percent had a severe disability.

The more premature the birth, the more likely a child was to have a moderate or severe disability, according to the study, which was published in the May 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In recent decades, improved treatment and care has increased the likelihood that extremely premature infants will survive, and this has led to concerns that the cost of better survival rates may mean more children with disabilities.

"Improved survival did not translate into increasing disability rates, and we, like others, believe that the neurodevelopmental outcome for extremely preterm children born in the 2000s will be better than for those born in the 1990s," Dr. Fredrik Serenius, of Uppsala University, and colleagues said in a journal news release.

Even so, the risk of disability among extremely premature infants is high and shows the need for further improvements in care, including better infection control and improved nutrition, the researchers said.

More information

The Nemours Foundation has more about premature babies.

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WEDNESDAY, Feb. 20 (HealthDay News) -- The emerging field of 3-D printing is able to now create artificial human ears that look and act like real ears, researchers say.

The artificial ears could give hope to children born with ear deformities or people who have lost all or part of their ear in an accident or from cancer, said the Cornell University team.

Currently, many artificial ears are made with materials that have a Styrofoam-like feeling. Or surgeons can build ears from a patient's rib, but this is challenging and painful for children and the ears rarely look completely natural or perform well, according to the study authors.

The new process begins with a digitized 3-D image of a patient's ear, which is turned into a mold using a 3-D printer. A special gel that contains collagen is injected into the mold. The collagen serves as a scaffold upon which cartilage can grow.

The process is fast, according to co-lead author Lawrence Bonassar, an associate professor of biomedical engineering.

"It takes half a day to design the mold, a day or so to print it, 30 minutes to inject the gel, and we can remove the ear 15 minutes later. We trim the ear and then let it culture for several days in nourishing cell culture media before it is implanted," he explained in a university news release.

The artificial ears are practically identical to natural ears, according to the researchers.

Children born with a rare deformity called microtia -- poorly developed outer ears -- may be key beneficiaries of the new technology. Microtia occurs in anywhere from one to four in every 10,000 births, the researchers noted. These children have an intact inner ear but they suffer hearing loss due to an insufficient outer ear.

Study co-author Dr. Jason Spector, director of the Laboratory for Bioregenerative Medicine and Surgery and associate professor of plastic surgery at Weill Cornell in New York City, said the best time to implant a bioengineered ear would be around the age of 5 or 6, because the human ear is already at 80 percent of its adult size by then.

The study was published online Feb. 20 in the journal PLoS One.

If tests go well and prove the safety and effectiveness of the prosthetic, the first human implant of this new type of artificial ear could take place in as soon as three years, the Cornell team said.

More information

The American Academy of Otolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery discusses ear plastic surgery.

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SUNDAY, Feb. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Emotionally exhausted women are much more sensitive to sounds when they are stressed, according to a new study.

For some of these women, even a normal conversation can be painful, Swedish researchers found. Doctors may need to consider patients' stress and exhaustion levels when treating hearing problems, the study suggests.

"When you are hypersensitive to sound, some normal sounds, such as the rattle of cutlery or the sound of a car engine, can feel ear-piercing," Dan Hasson, an associate professor in the department of physiology and pharmacology at the Karolinska Institute, explained in an institute news release. "Given how common it is for people to work in environments with different kinds of disturbing sounds, this hypersensitivity can be really disabling for certain individuals."

In conducting the study, the researchers exposed 208 women and 140 men ranging in age from 23 to 71 who had low, medium or high levels of emotional exhaustion to five minutes of physical, mental and social stress.

Physical stress was having participants put the hands in ice. They also underwent a mental stress test and were observed in a socially stressful situation.

Although none of the groups had different sensitivity to sound before they were exposed to stress, the study revealed the women with a high level of emotional exhaustion were much more sensitive to sounds after they were exposed to stress than other women who were not exhausted. Some of these women even found normal conversations too loud.

In contrast, the participants with low levels of exhaustion were actually less sensitive to sound after they were exposed to stress. The researchers pointed out that this is a normal reaction to stress.

"Serious forms of sound hypersensitivity can force people to isolate themselves and avoid potentially distressing situations and environments," added Hasson, also affiliated with Stockholm University's Stress Research Institute. "Our study indicates that exhaustion level and stress are additional factors that might have to be taken into account when diagnosing and treating hearing problems."

Although a similar trend was identified among the men, the differences were not statistically significant, the study's authors noted.

The study was published online recently in PLoS ONE.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to learn about managing stress.

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MONDAY, Jan. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Seniors who have trouble hearing may see their thinking skills slip away faster than others do, new research suggests.

The study of older U.S. adults found that those with hearing problems were 24 percent more likely to develop mental impairment over six years.

The Johns Hopkins researchers don't know for sure whether hearing loss directly causes mental decline in some cases -- or whether using hearing aids might help. But they are planning to study that possibility.

"At this point, the particular neural mechanisms -- that is, the 'why' and 'how' -- that link hearing loss to dementia are unclear," said Daniel Polley, of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

What is clear is that older adults should take hearing problems seriously, noted Polley, who was not involved with the study.

"If there is a takeaway to this, it would be to encourage folks to have their hearing tested by a health professional," Polley said.

The findings, which appear in the Jan. 21 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, are based on 1,984 adults in their 70s and 80s who showed no signs of impaired memory or thinking at the study's start. But the majority -- 1,162 in all -- did show some hearing loss.

Over the next six years, 609 men and women developed new signs of mental impairment -- based on a standard test of memory, concentration and language skills. And that risk was 24 percent higher among people who had hearing problems.

The researchers estimate that it would take a hearing-impaired older adult just under eight years, on average, to develop mental impairment, versus 11 years for their peers with normal hearing.

None of that proves cause-and-effect. However, the researchers did account for a number of factors that might have explained the link, such as people's education levels, smoking habits and health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure and a history of stroke.

There are reasons to believe that hearing loss could directly contribute to declines in brain function, said lead researcher Dr. Frank Lin, an otologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.

One is the fact that hearing loss can cause older adults to withdraw socially. When it becomes hard to hear what other people are saying, you might avoid going out or feel cut off from those around you, he noted.

"If you can't hear the person across from you at the dinner table, you won't be engaged in the conversation," Lin said.

That matters because a number of past studies have linked such social isolation and "loneliness" to an increased risk of dementia.

Another possibility, Lin said, is that hearing loss forces the brain to devote extra resources to processing the "garbled" signals it's getting from the ears.

"If you're redirecting brain resources to help with hearing," Lin explained, "that probably comes at the expense of something else -- like working memory."

There are a number of ways to help manage hearing loss, including hearing aids and assistive devices such as telephone amplifiers.

The "biggest question" now, according to Lin, is whether treating hearing loss can slow declines in brain function. He and his colleagues are planning a study to look at that question.

Hearing loss is common, affecting up to two-thirds of adults older than 70. But the fact that it's common doesn't mean it's harmless, both Lin and Polley pointed out.

"Hearing loss is more than an inconvenience or a source of embarrassment," Polley said. "Hearing represents a critical portal to conversation, a behavior that connects humans to one another socially and upon which our mental health greatly depends."

Doctors do not routinely screen older adults for hearing loss, so it's up to people to notice symptoms. Some red flags include having trouble hearing when there is background noise or when more than one person is speaking; problems hearing over the phone; and having to habitually ask people to repeat themselves.

But hearing loss also creeps up on people "slowly and insidiously," Lin said. So it might not be you who notices it, but the people around you.

The study was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Lin is a consultant to Pfizer, which is developing a potential drug for age-related hearing loss, and has served as an unpaid speaker for Cochlear Europe, which makes cochlear implants to treat severe hearing loss.

More information

Learn more about hearing loss from the U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.

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WEDNESDAY, Jan. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Although loud noise can result in irreversible hearing loss, researchers in Boston partially restored the hearing of mice with noise-induced deafness by regenerating damaged sound-sensing hair cells in the inner ear.

The study authors said their findings might one day help lead to the development of new treatments for people with acute hearing loss.

The team of researchers, led by Dr. Albert Edge of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, manipulated a cellular pathway that controls hair cells, known as the Notch pathway. They found that new hair cells formed after stem cells in the inner ear of the mice were treated with a drug that blocks this pathway.

The study was published in the Jan. 9 issue of the journal Neuron.

"We show that hair cells can be regenerated from the surrounding cells in the cochlea," Edge explained in a journal news release. "The new hair-cell generation results in a recovery of hearing in the region of the cochlea where the new hair cells appear."

The study's authors concluded the treatment holds promise for people with noise-induced deafness. "The significance of this study is that hearing loss is a huge problem affecting 250 million people worldwide," Edge concluded.

Experts often point out, however, that results achieved during tests conducted on animals don't necessarily translate to humans.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders provides more information on noise-induced hearing loss.

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MONDAY, Oct. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers who have identified a genetic mutation that causes deafness say that the findings could one day lead to the development of new treatments for those at risk for a certain type of hearing loss.

In their new study, scientists at the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center reported that the gene is associated with hearing loss stemming from Usher syndrome type 1, a condition that also causes night-blindness and a loss of peripheral vision due to retinal degeneration, as well as some cases of hearing loss not associated with the syndrome ("non-syndromic deafness").

"In this study, researchers were able to pinpoint the gene which caused deafness in Usher syndrome type 1 as well as deafness that is not associated with the syndrome through the genetic analysis of 57 humans from Pakistan and Turkey," lead investigator Zubair Ahmed, an assistant professor of ophthalmology who conducts research at Cincinnati Children's, said in a university news release.

Ahmed explained that deafness in Usher syndrome type 1 and non-syndromic hearing loss has been linked with mutations affecting a protein, known as CIB2, which attaches to calcium inside a cell. "To date, mutations affecting CIB2 are the most common and prevalent genetic cause of non-syndromic hearing loss in Pakistan," Ahmed said. "However, we have also found another mutation of the protein that contributes to deafness in Turkish populations."

In animal studies, CIB2 has been found in the hair cells of the inner ear that respond to fluid motion and allow hearing and balance. CIB2 is also found in retinal photoreceptor cells, making vision possible, the researchers noted in the news release.

The new findings provide more insight into mechano-electrical transduction, or the process that enables the ear to convert mechanical energy -- or energy of motion -- into something the brain can recognize as sound, the researchers pointed out.

"With this knowledge, we are one step closer to understanding the mechanism of mechano-electrical transduction and possibly finding a genetic target to prevent non-syndromic deafness as well as that associated with Usher syndrome type 1," Ahmed concluded in the news release.

The study, which also involved researchers from the U.S. National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Kentucky, was published in the Sept. 30 online edition of Nature Genetics.

It's estimated that 3 to 6 percent of deaf children and 3 to 6 percent of children who are hard-of-hearing have Usher syndrome. In the United States, roughly four out of every 100,000 babies have the syndrome.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about Usher syndrome.

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FRIDAY, Sept. 28 (HealthDay News) -- Nightclub employees could be exposed to dangerously high noise levels, putting them at greater risk for hearing loss, according to a new study.

The study also found that many nightclub managers in Ireland are unaware of noise regulations and do not attempt to protect the health and safety of their employees with hearing tests and noise-awareness training.

For the study, recently published in the International Journal of Noise & Health, a Dublin researcher analyzed the noise exposure of two nightclub employees at each of nine different nightclubs in Ireland. The workers were on average 25 years old and had worked in bars for five years.

A sound-level meter was placed at the bar closest to the dance floor and a dosimeter was attached to the shirt of each participant. The club managers also completed a questionnaire and were interviewed on noise-related health and safety legislation.

The average daily noise exposure of these employees, who worked 20 hours a week on average, was 92 decibels, the study revealed. Between 11:30 p.m. and 1 a.m., the noise levels in the clubs rose by an average of 7 decibels. A 3-decibel increase is akin to doubling the sound pressure level.

Study author Aoife Kelly, a researcher at the Dublin Institute of Technology, said that, over time, noise exposure greater than 85 decibels for eight hours a day can lead to permanent hearing loss.

The nightclub managers had little awareness of noise legislation, according to an institute news release. Noise risk assessments were made at only two clubs involved in the study. None of the clubs offered their employees hearing tests or trained their staff about the health risks of noise exposure.

Although work safety laws in the European Union require hearing protection be provided to workers exposed to more than 85 decibels, only two clubs provided this protection. Only one actually required its employees to wear it.

Kelly said more people need to be aware of noise exposure regulations, and more club managers need to comply with the legislation.

The study findings are similar to results seen in studies conducted in the United States, Britain and Australia, according to the news release.

The researchers said noise-induced hearing loss is the most commonly reported occupational disease in Europe.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders provides more information on noise-induced hearing loss.

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FRIDAY, Sept. 21 (HealthDay News) -- When a 63-year-old man went to a hospital in Switzerland to report a buzzing in his ear, the staff got more than they bargained for when they looked inside. A tick was attached to his eardrum, and it possibly got there with the help of a friendly feline.

The man is fine now that the tick has been removed, according to a brief report in the Sept. 20 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. While it's uncommon for ticks to make their way into the ear canal, emergency physicians say insects do make appearances in this fragile orifice.

"Insects in the ear are relatively common so this case is not very surprising," said Dr. Donald Keamy Jr., a pediatric otolaryngologist -- ear, nose and throat doctor -- at Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. "A case report like this is likely one of many other cases that were not reported."

The report said the man visited a hospital in Bern, Switzerland, while suffering from itching and "bubbling tinnitus," a kind of buzzing, in the ear. "Technically, this is not the typical high-pitched noise that is heard by patients with hearing loss," said Keamy, who was not involved with the case.

An evaluation of his right ear revealed that a tick had attached itself to the eardrum. The tick had probably caused the buzzing sound through its contact with the eardrum, Keamy explained.

The tick species is a type that's often found on cats in Europe.

The hospital removed the tick by numbing the man's ear and then using a suction device to suck it out. The tick can spread Lyme disease, but tests later revealed that the man didn't get infected; he recovered without further problems.

How did a tick manage to get in the man's ear in the first place? "On review," the report stated, "the patient remembered having had close contact with his domestic cat the evening before the symptoms began."

Keamy said the tick could have bitten the man inside his ear, but probably wouldn't have caused permanent damage.

Dr. Michael Lanigan, an attending physician in emergency medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in New York City, offered this advice for people who live in or visit places where ticks live: "The best way to prevent tick-borne disease is to check yourself and others -- particularly your children -- for ticks frequently."

Keamy added that it's smart to wear long-sleeved clothing while you're in wooded areas where ticks live. Treating your dog or cat to keep ticks at bay is another good idea, he said. "If you believe you have had a tick bite," he said, "see your primary care physician to discuss possible antibiotic treatment."

More information

For more on tick bites, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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WEDNESDAY, Sept. 12 (HealthDay News) -- Using nerve cells grown from human embryonic stem cells, researchers report that they restored hearing in deaf gerbils.

About 80 percent to 90 percent of deafness is due to problems with the cells in the inner ear, explained senior study author Marcelo Rivolta, a reader in sensory stem cell biology at the University of Sheffield, in England. In the inner ear, two types of cells are key to hearing. One type are tiny projections called hair cells, which convert sound vibrations into electrical signals, which then travel along the auditory nerve to the brain.

When hair cells are damaged, cochlear implants can help overcome that by converting sound vibrations into electrical signals, bypassing the hair cells and directing stimulating the auditory nerve, experts explained. But when the cause of deafness is damage to the neurons that make up the auditory nerve, much less can be done about it, Rivolta said.

"We have concentrated on trying to fix the problem at the neuronal level. The cochlear implant is a device that functionally replaces the hair cell -- it takes sound and transforms it into an electrical signal," Rivolta said. "But for the cochlear implant to work, you have to have a good connection to the brain."

In the study, which is published online in the Sept. 12 issue of Nature, researchers coaxed human embryonic stem cells -- which have the potential to grow into any type of cell in the body -- into differentiating into otic (ear) progenitor cells. They did this by placing the stem cells into a test tube that contained certain molecules known to be present during fetal development when the ear forms.

Progenitors are immature cells that haven't fully differentiated into their specific role, but have certain characteristics that have started them down that path. Researchers then further coaxed the progenitors into becoming hair cells or auditory neurons.

"We have a system in vitro [in a test tube] that we can use to produce these important cell types, a little factory of hair cells and neurons whenever we need them," Rivolta said.

Researchers then transplanted the progenitor cells into about a dozen gerbils that had auditory nerve damage. Ten weeks after transplantation, brain wave measurements showed the gerbils could hear again.

"What we have seen is the progenitors engraft, survive and connect to the other cells that are there, and more important, they produce a functional recovery," Rivolta said.

Though exciting, much needs to be learned before the technique could be used in humans, Rivolta said.

"From here to humans, there is still quite a way to go. This is a very important step forward, but one of the first steps," Rivolta said. "What we need to do now is to understand if this recovery is permanent. We have only followed the gerbils for 10 weeks or so. And we want to also know if the treatment is safe, so we will monitor the behavior of the animals long-term."

Dr. John Goddard, a neurotologist at the House Clinic in Los Angeles, said the idea of using stem cells to regenerate stem cells in the inner ear is of great interest to researchers, and others are working on similar studies. This study is exciting in that researchers showed that not only did the nerve cells regrow, but that the gerbils recovered some hearing, he said.

"It is clearly of interest for a lot of people because the potential is dramatic," Goddard said. "The specific article sheds additional light that there is some potential there for regrowth, or regeneration, of sensory cells. But this is going to take many years" to perfect, he added.

Experts also note that while studies involving animals can be useful, they frequently fail to produce similar results in humans.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders has more on deafness.

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THURSDAY, Sept. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Devices that amplify the sound of a teacher's voice may help children with dyslexia improve their reading skills, new research suggests.

After a year of wearing the devices in the classroom, children with dyslexia had improved scores on tests of phonological awareness and reading.

"We saw improvements in reading, and when we measured the brain's response to speech sounds, not only did the kids who wore the device become more consistent to the very soft and rapidly changing elements of sound that help distinguish one consonant from another, but their brains responded more consistently to sounds," said study senior author Nina Kraus, a neuroscientist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. "That improved stability was linked with reading improvement."

Results of the study were published in the Sept. 4 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

When people think of dyslexia, they often think of someone seeing letters backward. More recent research suggests, however, that difficulties in phonological processing are a problem for children with dyslexia.

"Phonological processing relies on so many different pieces of information, like the auditory processing of sound," explained Dena Klein, a psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. "If the sound isn't clear, it's hard to make a connection for what those sounds represent, and, in turn, that makes it hard to read."

"For some kids, there's an unstable recognition of sounds that impedes the sound-to-meaning connections that need to be made in order to learn to read," she said. "But if the child is hearing the teacher's voice right in his ear [through an assistive listening device], it makes him pay attention. It enables the child to know what to pay attention to."

In the current study, Kraus and her colleagues studied the impact such listening devices could have on children with dyslexia. Thirty-eight children between the ages of 8 and 14 participated in the study. All were attending a school for children with reading problems. The goal of the school is to get the children's reading levels back on track so that they can return to their usual school.

Nineteen students wore an assistive listening device throughout each school day for the entire school year. The other 19 children were the control group.

The device is simple. The teacher wears a microphone, and each child wears an earpiece, similar to a Bluetooth receiver, that puts the sound of the teacher's voice directly in the child's ear.

"The idea is that if you have the teacher's voice directly piped into your ear, you will focus more on that and be less distracted," Kraus said.

The researchers administered a number of reading tests at the beginning and end of the study. They also conducted tests to measure the brain's response -- through increased electrical activity picked up by electrodes worn outside the brain -- at the beginning and end of the study.

They found that the group that wore the listening devices had improvements in reading that the children in the control group did not. They also noted changes in the way the brain responded to sounds in the children who wore the device that they didn't see in children in the control group.

"Before and after a year of use of the device, the brains of kids who wore the device responded more consistently to the very soft and rapidly changing elements of sound that help distinguish one consonant from another, such as cat, bat and pat. That improved stability was linked with reading improvement," Kraus said. "When you start to hear things, you can make associations between what you hear and what it means. If you improve the auditory processing of sound, you give children a better chance to connect what it all means, and they can then connect that to what they see on paper."

Although children with attention-deficit disorder weren't included in the study, both Kraus and Klein said they thought these types of devices could be useful for those children.

Assistive listening devices are currently available for use in classrooms, and can come in different forms. The simplest, said Kraus, might be a microphone for the teacher and a wall-mounted speaker to increase the teacher's volume for all of the students.

For parents of children who have dyslexia or other reading difficulties, Kraus said it's important to note that reading and writing skills improve throughout life, so even a child who is struggling now can eventually become a better reader.

For parents of young children, Kraus said reading to your child, with your child next to you or on your lap, helps provide some of the same feedback the children in the study received.

"You're speaking right into the child's ear and helping their nervous system to stabilize, and providing a strong and steady scaffold for literacy skills to build on," she said.

More information

Learn more about dyslexia from the Nemours Foundation's KidsHealth.

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The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders says warning signs of hearing loss among young children could include:

• Among infants, the child fails to respond to his or her name or loud noises, and does not try to imitate sounds.
• By age 2, the child doesn't make playful sounds or imitate your voice.
• Among toddlers, the child doesn't participate in games such as pat-a-cake or peek-a-boo, or use sentences at least two words in length.
• By age 3, the child doesn't respond to simple directions or phrases such as "not now" or "no more."

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The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders says possible causes of tinnitus include:

• Hearing loss caused by exposure to loud noise.
• Having an sinus or ear infection.
• Having a cardiovascular problem.
• Having Menieré's disease.
• Having an abnormality of the thyroid gland.
• In women, having had recent hormonal changes.

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MONDAY, Aug. 13 (HealthDay News) -- A U.S. government panel of experts says there's just not enough good data to either support or refute the need for routine screening for hearing loss in people aged 50 or older.

More research is needed to fully evaluate the benefits and risks of routine screening, according to new recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

"Hearing loss is common in older adults, impacting 20 to 40 percent of adults over age 50 and more than 80 percent of adults age 80 or older," stated task force member and co-vice chair Dr. Albert Siu in a news release issued by the panel.

He added that even though doctors have a number of screening methods for hearing loss at their disposal, "it's not clear [from the literature] whether people who don't have symptoms, or those who have symptoms but haven't sought evaluation of them, will benefit from early detection and treatment of hearing loss."

One expert not connected to the panel said that while clear evidence in favor of routine screening might be lacking, testing older people's hearing remains a good idea.

"Hearing screening in the senior population is important, as it can diagnose unrecognized hearing impairment so that proper management can be undertaken, whether it is diagnostic, medical, surgical or audiologic (amplification)," said Dr. Ian Storper, director of otology at the New York Head & Neck Institute of Lenox Hill Hospital, in New York City. "This is purely an opinion, but it seems straightforward, with our desire as practitioners to optimize the lifestyles of our patients and our patients' desires to be as highly functional as possible."

Storper said the panel's decision was based on the notion that there isn't enough good data "examining the subject in detail."

While that may be true, "until the task force has a clear recommendation, the practice of hearing screening should be continued for the reasons given above," Storper said.

The panel pointed out that people who are experiencing trouble hearing or have issues that may be related to hearing loss, such as depression or memory problems, should still be assessed and treated for hearing loss.

"We want to help health care professionals better approach the problem of hearing loss in the future," Siu concluded. "To that end, more research is needed to define optimal screening guidelines. We also want to improve our understanding of the factors associated with sustained use of hearing aids to target testing and treatment to people most likely to benefit."

The final recommendation statement for Screening for Hearing Loss in Older Adults was published online Aug. 14 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders has more about hearing loss and older adults.

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