Advancing knowledge of human development, developmental disabilities, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Our Goals: We hope you will be a part of the first study for young adults with Down syndrome to combine: Who can help? Young adults with Down syndrome who are: How much time will I need to be there? We would like you and your Caregiver to come for 2-3 days so we will …
Hearing impairment (HI) is an epidemic affecting over 1.5 billion individuals of all ages. Globally, unaddressed HI causes losses of ~US$1 trillion each year. Addressing HI requires early detection which current hearing screening tools are inadept at doing efficiently. Specifically, current hearing screening tools can either only index the sensory cells in the inner ear or require measurement of brainstem electroencephalography (EEG) to index the sensory cells and the auditory nerve which require additional resources.
To investigate the feasibility of using functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to image cortical activity in cochlear implant (CI) users and normal hearing (NH) adults, using either visual-speech or auditory-speech.
Winning a game of darts requires being accurate. A player who can pick a spot on the board, focus their mind, and execute the specific motor action needed to land the bullseye will win the game. And if they miss, well, practice makes perfect.
The auditory efferent system (ES) originates in the auditory cortex and terminates in the cochlea (inner ear). The activity of the ES has several hypothesized implications for human hearing: facilitating speech understanding in noisy environments, protecting the sensitive inner ear against loud noise, and serving as biological markers of damage in the auditory system.
Click. Click. Click. What’s that sound? It’s Waisman Center investigator Sriram Boothalingam exploring ways to develop more comprehensive and reliable hearing tests. To test for several types of hearing loss, audiologists use a small earphone to introduce sounds – like clicks – into the ear. Then they monitor for sounds, called otoacoustic emissions, that the …
How did you get into your field of research? After I learned that the inner ear can produce sounds on its own and that the brain controls what we hear, I was hooked!
Title: Does Bilateral Experience Lead to Improved Spatial Unmasking of Speech in Children Who Use Bilateral Cochlear Implants? Legend: We vary the spatial locations of target speech and masking speech, so they are co-located (A) or separated (B). The difference in speech reception thresholds between (A) and (B) indicates advantage from spatial cues (spatial release …
How do we hear? And how can cochlear implants help those with impaired hearing? Waisman researcher Ruth Litovsky, PhD, answers these questions in the latest episode of Blue Sky Science, a collaboration of the Wisconsin State Journal and the Morgridge Institute for Research. Read the article here.
Title: Characterization of a unique cell population marked by transgene expression in the adult cochlea of nestin-CreER(T2)/tdTomato-reporter mice Legend: Left image: Cochlea from an adult nestin-CreERT2/tdTomato-reporter mouse 56 days post tamoxifen injection. Low power macroscopic imaging analysis showed a pattern of tdTomato expression on the neural aspect of Sox2-positive supporting cells. An apical-basal gradient was not …
