Hearing

The mission of the Hearing Research Program is to advance our understanding of the mechanisms and effects of hearing loss, and to improve diagnostic methods, intervention procedures, and prevention strategies. The collaborative work across laboratories summarized below is funded by NIH and other sources and by generous private foundation support.

James W. Dias, Ph.D. is dedicated to understanding the mechanisms involved in processing auditory and visual speech information and how these processes change with age. Despite unisensory deficits in auditory and visual speech perception, some older adults perceive audiovisual speech on a par with younger adults. This conserved audiovisual speech perception by older adults suggests that age-related changes in multisensory processing can compensate for unisensory deficits. Cross-modal plasticity, multisensory integration, and top-down modulation of sensory input all play important roles in multisensory perception. Culminating evidence from our lab suggests that older adults can rely on these mechanisms to help preserve communication skills in multisensory environments, even as hearing and vision decline with age. Our lab employs a multi-method approach, combining behavioral assessments and functional and structural neuroimaging to study the mechanisms that underly auditory, visual, and audiovisual speech perception to determine how age-related changes in these mechanisms can help conserve multisensory perception and audiovisual speech communication with age.

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Judy R. Dubno, Ph.D. and colleagues conduct research focused in two areas, understanding age-related hearing loss, and developing and evaluating methods to improve access to hearing health care for older adults. Our research program uses behavioral, electrophysiologic, self-report, and genetic methods in humans and supports a longitudinal cohort study of age-related hearing loss in adults across the lifespan. Overall, this research program contributes to the growing need to address hearing loss as a public health concern with a long-term goal of improving clinical care, communication, and quality of life for millions of adults with hearing loss.

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Mark A. Eckert, Ph.D. and collaborators study hearing loss and speech recognition difficulties in older adults, as well as developmental reading disability. This research includes neuroimaging experiments that are designed to examine the neural consequences of age-related hearing loss, understand how neural systems support speech recognition in noise, and identify developmental factors that confer or protect from risk of reading disability. We also develop methods to advance these areas of study, including a data sharing and delivery resource for neuroimaging studies of reading development and disability (dyslexiadata.org).

Please see our external site for additional information: eckertlab.org

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Kelly C. Harris, Ph.D. and collaborators conduct translational research to understand the structure and function of the cochlear and neural systems underlying age-related changes in auditory processing. Current projects use behavioral, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging methods to characterize cochlear and auditory nerve function in older adults and assess the impact of these peripheral changes on the cortex, especially cortical plasticity. 

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Hainan Lang, M.D., Ph.D. engages in basic hearing research focused on molecular mechanisms of auditory nerve function and repair, myelin degeneration and cochlear macrophage dysfunction in presbyacusis, and auditory impairments in autism spectrum disorders. Working with collaborators within and outside MUSC, our research projects utilize a multidisciplinary approach including cell and molecular biology, auditory electrophysiology, complex mouse behavioral analyses, cochlear gene therapy, and the comparisons of the cochlear pathology between mouse models and postmortem human temporal bones.

Please see our laboratory site for additional information: Lang lab

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Carolyn McClaskey, Ph.D. explores the neural and behavioral changes that occur with aging and hearing loss, focusing specifically on the auditory midbrain. Together with collaborators, we use noninvasive neuroimaging, electrophysiologic, electrocochleographic, and behavioral methods to assess how age, age-relating hearing loss, and asymmetric hearing loss relate to changes in structure and function and how these changes underlie auditory perceptual deficits. Ongoing research also aims to understand how advancing age and worsening hearing loss can lead to hyperactivity in the subcortical auditory system and how this may negatively impact speech communication.

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Kenny I. Vaden, Ph.D. studies age-related changes in the brain and hearing across the lifespan, which contribute to listening difficulties commonly experienced by older adults. This research includes neuroimaging experiments on brain systems that support speech recognition in noise. We have developed new statistical methods to analyze incomplete data sets, synthesize neuroimaging data for replicating results, and combine retrospective data sets from multiple sites. Another area of research focuses on how to accurately estimate different kinds of hearing loss that may occur with older age. This work involves audiograms and other hearing-related data collected from the MUSC Longitudinal Cohort Study of Age-related Hearing Loss by colleagues in the MUSC Hearing Research Program and other collaborators.

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Brent A. Wilkerson, Ph.D. and collaborators conduct mechanistic research on hearing loss. We investigate maladaptive processes and developmental defects that contribute to hearing loss. Our research leverages the strengths of mouse models to evaluate new genetic risk factors for hearing loss and to answer etiological questions. We use single-cell genomics analysis to identify new cell subtypes and markers as well as the underlying gene networks.

Publications