Clinical trial NCT06953700: Effects of Asymmetries on Binaural-Hearing Abilities Across the Lifespan
Official title: Effects of Asymmetries on Binaural-Hearing Abilities Across the Lifespan
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: ENROLLING_BY_INVITATION
Phase: NA
Conditions: Aging
Hearing Loss
Hearing Asymmetry
Lead sponsor: University of Maryland, College Park
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
First posted: 2025-05-01
Enrollment: 150
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 18
Maximum age (years): 80
Standard ages: ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: NA
Intervention model: SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose: BASIC_SCIENCE

Brief summary: Binaural hearing involves combining auditory information across the ears. With binaural hearing, listeners benefit from perceiving sounds from different spatial locations. This is critical in solving the "cocktail party problem" (i.e., understanding speech in the presence of competing background sounds and noise). As humans get older, hearing loss increases, binaural abilities decrease, and the cocktail party problem becomes increasingly difficult. This research studies the mechanisms underlying the impact of age and hearing loss on speech-perception in noise and cocktail-party listening situations. More specifically, the role of hearing asymmetries between the ears is investigated. The specific aims are to generate an audiological and binaural-hearing-focused dataset for a large cohort of participants that vary in hearing asymmetry, age, and hearing loss and to use machine learning to uncover complex associations and generate novel hypotheses relating audiometric variables and basic binaural-hearing abilities to the cocktail-party problem. Participants in this research will complete perceptual measures of hearing acuity and spatial hearing. Participants will also report on speech understanding under noisy and challenging listening conditions. This research may lead to improvements in audiological care and hearing interventions.


Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Adults (18-80 years)
* No hearing asymmetry between ears (≤10 dB at any frequency) or, hearing asymmetry between ears \>10 dB
* Native English speakers
* Primarily use oral language
* Sufficient corrected or uncorrected visual acuity (20/50 or better) to read large-font text

Exclusion Criteria:

* Acoustic tone-detection threshold \>50 dB HL at any octave frequency (250-4000 Hz) in either ear (i.e., more than a moderate hearing loss)
* History of neurological disorders (e.g., stroke, Parkinson's disease) determined by self-report
* History of post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury determined by self-report
* Possibility of acoustic neuroma, hearing asymmetry (\>10 dB at three consecutive audiometric threshold frequencies)
* Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score \<22/30
* No oral language use
* Cochlear implant user
* Conductive hearing loss

Primary outcomes:
measure: Sound localization
timeFrame: After enrollment, in one visit lasting 1-2 hours
measure: Spatial release from masking
timeFrame: After enrollment, in one visit lasting 1-2 hours
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Basic binaural sensitivity
timeFrame: After enrollment, in one visit lasting 1-2 hours
measure: Cognitive assessment
timeFrame: After enrollment, in one visit lasting 1-2 hours
measure: Audiological assessment of hearing thresholds
timeFrame: After enrollment, in one visit lasting ~1 hour
measure: Auditory Brainstem Response
timeFrame: After enrollment, in one visit lasting ~1 hour
measure: Distortion-Product Otoacoustic Emissions
timeFrame: After enrollment, in one visit lasting ~1 hour
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: College Park
country: United States
facility: University of Maryland, College Park
state: Maryland
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Maryland, College Park
name: Matthew J. Goupell, PhD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
affiliation: University of Maryland, College Park
name: Michael P. Cummings, PhD
role: STUDY_DIRECTOR
References: