hidden heaaring loss
09-10, 17:45–18:00 (Europe/Istanbul), Audiology 2

<p>Hidden hearing loss is described as auditory neuropathy believed to contribute to speech discrimination and intelligibility deficits in people with normal audiograms. •The individual complains of difficulties in understanding speech in the presence of background noise, but has normal hearing thresholds on pure tone audiometry (PTA).</p> <p>Noise exposure causes damage to both the presynaptic ribbons and postsynaptic nerve terminals of the ribbon synapses. The damaged synapses exhibit various degrees of swelling of the terminals, resulting in disruption of the synaptic connections between IHCs and SGNs.The mechanism for the damage to the postsynaptic terminal is glutamate-mediated excitotoxicity. However, it is unclear how the presynaptic ribbons are damaged. Mechanism of ribbon loss is the loss of cell-cell contact that is required for the maintenance of the pre- and postsynaptic complexes. Ribbon loss results from a breakdown of ribbon building units.</p> <p>Evaluation of these patients includes pure-tone audiometry, immittance testing, electrocochleography, ABR, and speech-in-noise tests.</p> <p>The prevalence of synaptopathy increases with age. Children often listen to music or play video games at high volumes through earphones and attend noisy school dances, concerts, sporting events, etc. , making them potentially vulnerable to noise-induced synaptopathy, Hidden hearing Loss as well.</p>
<p>Hidden hearing loss (HHL) refers to difficulty understanding speech in noisy environments despite normal hearing thresholds. It is often linked to cochlear synaptopathy, involving damage to synapses between inner hair cells and auditory nerve fibers. Modern risk factors include excessive use of personal audio devices, chronic noise exposure, and air pollution. These can cause neural degeneration in the auditory pathway without affecting pure-tone audiometry results. As a result, individuals may experience significant communication challenges. HHL represents an emerging auditory issue driven by environmental and lifestyle factors, warranting greater attention in both research and public health contexts.</p>
Session Chair Session Chair
Merve Ozbal Batuk
Speaker Speaker
Nilüfer Bal
Nilüfer Bal
<p>Nilüfer Bal is an Ass. Prof. lecturer at Marmara University's School of Medicine, Department of Audiology. She completed a BSC degree in audiology at Gazi University (2008) and a doctorate (PhD) in audiology at Marmara University (2021). She worked as an expert audiologist in the private sector and as a lecturer at several universities. She is the author and reviewer of several articles in scientific journals. Her research interests include ERPs, the effects of noise, auditory maturation, auditory and vestibular neurophysiology, and clinical audiology.</p>
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Merve Ozbal Batuk
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