Article & Research Summaries

Twenty-one patients with definite Meniere’s disease (mean 49 ± 6.92 years) were compared with 24 healthy individuals. All underwent pure-tone audiometry, acoustic immittance, VNG, video ocular counter-roll (vOCR), ocular VEMP and subjective visual vertical/horizontal (SVV/SVH) testing.

• Static vOCR gain was similar in the two groups; on its own, the “strength” of the reflex looks normal.
• In the Meniere group, however, the OCR asymmetry ratio (p = 0.01) and oVEMP asymmetry (p < 0.001) were significantly higher.
• SVV and SVH deviations were significantly larger in the upright position (0°); no difference was found at 15°, 30° or 45° of tilt.

Adult cochlear implant recipients with postlingual deafness and at least 6 months of device experience were randomised to oral donepezil 5 mg or placebo daily for 90 days. The primary outcome was the change in CNC word recognition in the implanted ear; cortical plasticity was tracked with fNIRS. Nine of 13 enrolled participants completed the protocol.

• With donepezil (n = 4), CI-only CNC word scores rose by a mean of 14.5 points, exceeding the 10-point threshold for clinical significance; with placebo (n = 5) they fell by 0.8 points (d = 0.88).
• Binaural word recognition, sentence recognition and speech in noise also improved more with donepezil; SSQ scores rose and listening fatigue fell.
• All participants increased daily device use by a mean of 3.1 hours; on fNIRS, donepezil increased left frontal cortex activation during a speech-in-noise task (p < 0.001).

In 30 young (18–25 years) and 34 older adults (65–89 years) meeting strict criteria for normal middle-ear function, the authors measured wideband acoustic immittance (resonant frequency, absorbance at ambient and at tympanometric peak pressure), DPOAEs at six frequencies from 1000 to 6000 Hz and air-bone gaps from pure-tone audiometry.

• Compared with young adults, older adults showed higher absorbance at low frequencies and lower absorbance at high frequencies (at ambient and peak pressure), together with a lower resonant frequency.
• DPOAE SNRs and amplitudes were significantly lower in older adults at all frequencies tested; absorbance correlated positively with DPOAE SNR only at 4 kHz.
• Air-bone gaps were significantly larger in older adults only at 4000 Hz, and absorbance showed no correlation with air-bone gap at any frequency.

One hundred college musicians with thresholds below 25 dB HL wore personal noise dosimeters and kept daily activity diaries for a week. Participants were subtyped by instrument, ensemble type and number, and music-major status.

• Average daily sound dose ranged from 2% to 1638% of the NIOSH recommended exposure limit; about 70% of the cohort exceeded the limit.
• Total years of training did not predict daily dose, but weekly hours of music activity did. Music majors and non-majors had similar exposure.
• Brass and woodwind players tended to be more exposed than string players, band members more than orchestra members, and musicians in several ensembles more than those in one; vocalists and string players were at lowest risk.
• Musician subtype and amount of music engagement explained only about half of the variance between individuals.

Forty-one older adults with mild-to-moderate sensorineural loss meeting OTC criteria compared collections of 4, 16 and 32 presets and an individual NAL-NL2 fitting in double-elimination tournaments. Presets were derived from NAL-NL2 REIG targets across a large audiogram database; the 32-preset collection also built in empirical preference deviations. Speech reception thresholds were then measured in quiet and in noise.

• In quiet the 32-preset collection was significantly preferred: 49% of participants ranked it highest and 44% ranked NAL-NL2 last.
• Preferences in noise followed a similar trend but ranks did not differ significantly; speech thresholds differed slightly across collections in quiet but not in noise.
• When a preset was preferred over NAL-NL2, the difference was mainly overall gain rather than spectral shape; experienced users preferred more gain and were less likely to prefer presets over NAL-NL2.

216 young adults aged 18–37 with thresholds of 20 dB HL or better from 250 to 8000 Hz, 87 of them with bothersome chronic tinnitus for over a year, completed the SSQ12, QuickSIN and a dichotic digit test; extended high-frequency thresholds up to 16 kHz were measured. Confounders such as noise history were controlled, and causality was tested with genome-wide association data.

• Tinnitus was associated with lower SSQ12 scores and poorer dichotic digit performance even after statistically controlling for thresholds; greater tinnitus severity went with lower SSQ12 scores.
• Lifetime noise exposure and firearm use were associated with higher thresholds and lower SSQ12 scores.
• Tinnitus and speech-in-noise deficits were significantly genetically correlated, but no causal effect was found; the shared basis pointed to synaptic function in regions such as the frontal and cingulate cortex, hippocampus and amygdala.

A retrospective review at a Turkish tertiary centre (University of Health Sciences, Gülhane) of 1,322 infants seen between January 2021 and December 2024 who either referred on screening or passed automated ABR while carrying a risk factor.

• Hearing loss was identified in 92 infants (7.0%): 3.3% unilateral and 3.7% bilateral.
• By degree: mild 2.8%, moderate 0.8%, moderately severe 0.3%, profound 1.5%.
• Most unilateral losses were not aided; among bilateral cases, 28.6% received hearing aids and 14.3% a cochlear implant.
• The only factor significantly associated with device use was a family history of hearing loss (p < 0.05).

Eighty-six Mandarin-speaking adults formed three groups: young normal-hearing, older normal-hearing and older hearing-impaired. Two paradigms were used: a dichotic “atomic speech” task built on sparse coding, which measures interaural spectro-temporal integration, and the antiphasic Zodiac-in-Noise test, which measures binaural unmasking based on interaural phase/timing cues.

• On the atomic-speech task, older listeners had elevated thresholds both monaurally and dichotically; once monaural performance was accounted for, the decline in binaural integration was predicted by age, not by hearing loss.
• Speech-in-noise thresholds were affected by both age and hearing loss, but the binaural benefit (BILD) was reduced mainly in the older hearing-impaired group.
• Performance on the two paradigms was uncorrelated: they tap two distinct abilities.

Rehabilitation patterns were examined in 213,285 US Veterans Affairs patients (mean age 80.3 ± 9.7) with bilateral severe or worse hearing loss; time to cochlear implantation was modelled with death as a competing risk.

• 95.2% of veterans had been fitted with hearing aids, only 2.5% had received a cochlear implant and 2.3% had no rehabilitation at all.
• The cumulative incidence of cochlear implantation was 1.9% at 5 years and 2.9% at 10 years.
• Age, race and ethnicity, VA priority group, word-recognition score, degree of loss, year of first documented loss and comorbidity count were all significantly associated with implantation.

Dynamic sound localization was measured in 102 adults in a virtual-reality environment under two postural conditions (seated and standing) with moving sound sources; absolute localization error and response consistency were compared.

• Localization error increased significantly in the standing condition compared with sitting.
• The effect was greater in older participants: the additional postural load consumed part of the resources available for spatial hearing.
• Head-movement strategy differed between conditions, showing that localization is not a purely auditory task.

Postoperative imaging and outcomes were reviewed in 48 ears with inner ear malformations that had received a cochlear implant; angular insertion depth was measured and related to auditory performance and complications.

• Angular insertion depth varied widely between malformation types: the same electrode does not sit the same way in every cochlea.
• Very deep insertion did not translate into better auditory outcomes and was associated with a higher complication risk in some malformations.
• Electrode choice and surgical planning matter more than depth alone.

Older adults with hearing loss were assessed with the Beck Depression Inventory and a self-report hearing-handicap measure; scores were compared across demographic groups.

• Median Beck Depression Inventory score was 29; 39% of participants fell into the moderate and 40.2% into the severe depression category.
• Depression scores rose significantly with the degree of hearing handicap (p < 0.001).
• There was no significant difference by sex, whereas marital status, education and income level did differ significantly between groups.