Auditory Nerves and Hidden Hearing Loss

Hearing loss causes include noise exposure, infection, genetic predisposition, aging, and accidents in the work field—but some hearing loss symptoms aren’t as easily deduced on a regular hearing assessment. 

These forms of “hidden hearing loss” can sometimes go missed by hearing tests, and these individuals can sometimes still suffer from hearing loss challenges even after a hearing assessment to test their hearing.  

One study from 2022 sought to understand why this was occurring—and the results make a lot of sense! 

Seeking to Understand Hidden Hearing Loss 

National Institute of Health-funded researchers led by Dr. Stéphane Maison from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary looked to find ways to identify cochlear nerve damage, which was a suspected cause of these hidden hearing loss symptoms. 

In their study, they looked at over 95,000 word-recognition scores from hearing tests, including all sorts of different conditions that are known to cause nerve damage to your ears, as well as aging and noise overexposure—two other causes for hearing loss challenges. 

Dr. Maison’s team hypothesized that people with cochlear nerve damage would have lower scores on the word-recognition task than predicted by standard hearing tests; although they could hear specific sounds, nerve damage would prevent those sounds from being processed correctly by the brain. 

The researchers discovered their hypothesis was true: Many people brought word-recognition scores that were lower than predicted by their standard hearing tests, and these sorts of results were highest in people with conditions that significantly damaged the cochlear nerves.  

One of these conditions is cochlear synaptopathy. Cochlear synaptopathy is a common type of hearing loss, affecting 35 million people in the US, caused by broken synapses (small nerve fibers) traveling from the inner ear hair cells to the large auditory nerve fibers that go to the brain.  

While all of the causes of cochlear synaptopathy hearing loss are unknown, there is no cure; both ears are usually affected, and the hearing loss that comes as a result can range from mild to severe.  

Hearing loss can be caused by a number of different things, but when it comes to hidden hearing loss, there’s still a lot that we’re learning about the ear. We’re constantly educating ourselves and learning more to better serve our community in all things hearing care.  

We do know that hidden hearing loss can be successfully treated with properly fitted hearing aids with AI and accessories like remote microphones, TV devices, etc. 

Concerned About Your Hearing? 

We’re here to help with all matters of hearing care, whether you’re in need of a comprehensive hearing test, hearing assistive technology, or more.