Scientific and medical advances

Since its creation in 1985, Deafness Research UK has awarded over £9 million in research grants to secure radical improvements in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of all forms of hearing impairment.

The advances we have been responsible for include:

• the development of the Otoacoustic Emissions (OAE) test to enable doctors to identify hearing impaired babies at birth.
• research into more effective cochlear implant devices and services, including assessment, fitting and rehabilitation procedures for children.
• improvements in signal processing for digital hearing aids in order to help improve speech discrimination and understanding, particularly in noisy environments
• the isolation of genes responsible for many forms of inherited deafness including the most important breakthrough – that mutations in the Connexin-26 gene cause a significant proportion of congenital and childhood deafness
• research into preventing or repairing inner ear damage, including funding researchers who were the first to report that hair cells in the mammalian balance system can regenerate
• the discovery that an overproduction of the neurotransmitter glutamate can be linked to tinnitus, a finding which could lead to new drug treatments for the condition.