BCL11B/CTIP2 zinc-finger transcription factor is expressed in various types of cells in many different tissues. This study showed that BCL11B is expressed in the nucleus of the outer hair cells of the mouse cochlea, degeneration of which is known to cause deafness and presbycusis or age-related hearing loss (AHL). We tested whether or not Bcl11b heterozygosity would affect AHL in mice. Analysis...

This article describes the hearing impairment (HI) phenotype which segregates in a large multi-generation Swiss-German family with autosomal dominant nonsyndromic HI. The locus segregating within this pedigree is located on chromosome 4q35-qter and is designated as DFNA24. For this pedigree, audiometric data on 25 hearing-impaired family members are available. It was demonstrated that within th...

This article is a clinical report on the applicability of computer software in determining hearing handicaps and presbyacusis. The software is now World Wide Web based and can be implemented in a clinical setting by using JavaScript calculators housed on the World Wide Web at . Added features consist of calculating the maximum recommended allowable noise ...

A conventional measure to determine the ability to understand speech in noisy backgrounds is the so-called speech reception threshold (SRT) for sentences. It yields the signal-to-noise ratio (in dB) for which half of the sentences are correctly perceived. The SRT defines to what degree speech must be audible to a listener in order to become just intelligible. There are indications that elderly ...

Background: The process of aging is associated with degenerative changes in all parts of the human body including the neural and sensory aspect of the ear. Hearing loss is one of the disabling diseases found common in elderly patients due to these degenerative changes. Objective: To determine the prevalence and common causes of sensorineural hearing loss in the elderly. Materials and Method: Al...

INTRODUCTION Chronic diseases can act as an accelerating factor in the auditory system degeneration. Studies on the association between presbycusis and diabetes mellitus and systemic arterial hypertension have shown controversial conclusions. OBJECTIVE To compare the initial audiometry (A1) with a subsequent audiometry (A2) performed after a 3 to 4-year interval in a population of elderly pat...