Thanks to the generosity of General Grand Chapter Royal Arch Masons International, Hearing Health Foundation funds groundbreaking research to advance scientific understanding of Auditory Processing Disorder. Grants focused on APD are awarded annually to promising scientific investigators through the Emerging Research Grants program.
Accomplishments by HHF-Funded Scientists
Samira Anderson, Au.D., Ph.D.
Samira Anderson and her colleagues found that amplification may improve neural representation of the speech signal in new hearing aid users. The improvement with amplification was also found in cortex, and decreased P1 latencies and lower N1 amplitudes may indicate greater neural efficiency.
Inyong Choi, Ph.D.
Inyong Choi and his team found that the ability to combine information across multiple frequencies is a critical factor for good speech-in-noise understanding. Dr. Choi and colleagues are now studying how to improve sensitivity to this naturalness in listeners with hearing loss, with the goal of providing individualized therapeutic options.
Beula Magimairaj, Ph.D.
Beula Magimairaj presented a novel framework for conceptualizing auditory processing abilities in school-age children. Her framework includes cognitive and linguistic factors along with auditory factors as potential sources of deficits that may contribute individually or together to listening difficulties in children.
Srikanta Mishra, Ph.D.
Srikanta Mishra and his team successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of the automated noise rejection procedure of sweep-tone-evoked stimulus frequency otoacoustic emissions in adults. These findings should be useful for developing tests for cochlear function in clinical and laboratory settings.
Nirmal Kumar Srinivasan, Ph.D.
Nirmal Kumar Srinivasan and colleagues found that sharp binaural pitch fusion is necessary for maximal speech perception in noise when acoustic hearing is available to transmit voice pitch cues. Speech reception thresholds using male and female target talkers were compared with binaural pitch fusion results.
Richard A. Felix II, Ph.D.
Richard A. Felix II produced evidence that lower-level subcortical areas may play a significant role in hearing disorders. Subcortical pathways represent early-stage processing on which sound perception is built, meaning problems with complex sounds such as speech often have neural correlates in the auditory brainstem, midbrain and thalamus.
Yoojin Chung, Ph.D.
Yoojin Chung examined neural mechanisms underlying the limitations of clinical bilateral cochlear implants as they relate to understanding conversations in noise. The research suggested improvements such as delivering interaural time difference information in low-rate pulse trains.
Elizabeth McCullagh, Ph.D.
Elizabeth McCullagh performed the first study exploring alterations in glycinergic inhibition in the auditory brainstem of Fragile X syndrome mice. Her findings suggest that further knowledge of changes in lower auditory areas may be needed to better understand altered sound processing in individuals with Fragile X syndrome.
Andrew Dimitrijevic, Ph.D.
Andrew Dimitrijevic was published for a study measuring alpha rhythms during attentive listening in a commonly used speech-in-noise task known as digits-in-noise. His team’s findings advance understanding of neural activity related to speech-in-noise tasks.
