Developing New Tests for Site of Lesion in Hearing Loss (PhD only)

Hearing loss is often a black box, described by symptoms (such as sudden hearing loss) rather than the underlying biology. The aim of this project is to develop and apply newer and more sophisticated tests of auditory function tease out if the site of lesion is at the inner ear, synapse or auditory nerve.
This project will use and modify current tests in electrophysiology such as electrocochleography, ABR, and frequency following responses, and psychoacoustic tests such as amplitude modulated noise, reversed speech etc. In a series of patients with suspected or known pathologies in the cochlear basilar membrane mechanics, auditory nerve, synapse and outer hair cells to develop a panel of discriminatory tests that can pinpoint the site of pathology better in hearing impaired subjects.We will liaise with animal researchers using genetic knockout mice with known sites of pathophysiology to corroborate our findings in patients.

(Suitable for clinical otology, audiology or auditory science backgrounds)