Neuroplasticity in Auditory Aging at University of Maryland

https://isr.umd.edu/news/story/training-can-improve-older-adultsrsquo-ability-to-discriminate-rapid-changes-in-sound

Training Can Improve Older Adults’ Ability to Discriminate Rapid Changes in Sound Findings support subsequent studies on hearing loss-reversing interventions

Here is an article from Next Avenue magazine that discusses Auditory Processing Disorder where Drs. Gordon-Salant and Anderson have been quoted.

When Auditory Processing Disorder Keeps You Isolated There’s help available if you struggle to understand what other people are saying

Sandra Gordon-Salant, PI for the Neuroplasticity in Auditory Aging study, discussing study results with part of her research team.

Recently, Samira Anderson, PI, authored an article in Canadian Audiologist, that provides information about some of the research we are doing. You can read about it here:

Mysteries of the Hearing Brain: Auditory Training May Partially Restore Temporal Processing | Canadian Audiologist The Official Publication of the Canadian Academy of Audiology

WE ARE STILL RECRUITING! Please share this page with your friends and family and encourage them to give us a call at 301-405-4236.
Also, Carol is available to come and speak about the study to any groups or organizations that are interested. Her direct line is 301-405-5629.

Recently one of our PI's, Samira Anderson, published an article entitled "Rate Discrimination Training May Partially Restore Temporal Processing Abilities from Age-Related Deficits." This article was written using data from the P01 and includes some of the results.

The article was co-authored by Lindsay DeVries, Edward Smith, Matthew J. Goupell, and Sandra Gordon-Salant and can be found here:

Rate Discrimination Training May Partially Restore Temporal Processing Abilities from Age-Related Deficits - PubMed The ability to understand speech in complex environments depends on the brain's ability to preserve the precise timing characteristics of the speech signal. Age-related declines in temporal processing may contribute to the older adult's experience of communication difficulty in challenging listening...

Our study had a table at Maryland Day! We had a constant flow of people stopping by to learn about the research we are doing.

Jonathan Simon, a PI on our grant, was interviewed by the Beacon recently. Read the interview below:
Say what? Study helps focus on hearing Photo by Mark Paton on Unsplash By Margaret Foster, April 06, 2022

If you have trouble keeping up with a conversation in a noisy restaurant, you’re not alone. After all, as we age, our ears and brains age, too. Now researchers at the University of Maryland’s Hearing Lab are launching a study to teach older adults how to listen better. They’re seeking 100 volunteers between the ages of 65 and 85. “For someone who has trouble understanding what’s going on at a dinner table at a restaurant and would like to be able to understand better, this might help them,” said Jonathan Simon, principal investigator. “It could also help us determine what helps other people.” Simon’s team has designed a training program to help listeners understand more of what others are saying and to reduce the effort it takes to do that. Six weeks, mostly at home The six-week study includes five in-person visits to College Park, Maryland. Parking is free, and compensation will be provided. But most of the study can be done at home on a computer. Each participant will listen to a 30-minute session and answer questions about what they’ve heard. Even “for people who don’t feel that comfortable with computers, it works just fine,” Simon said. His staff will check in “at the beginning and the end [of each session] to make sure everything is working and that participants are comfortable.” Once enrolled, participants will be placed at random into one of three groups. One group will watch instructional videos and answer questions about them. Another group will listen to a speaker while someone else talks over them at varying volumes. The third group will take a memory test, which “involves much more of the brain and brings in memory and listening,” Simon said. For each participant, both before and after the training, Simon said, “We measure how difficult it is for them to understand speech in noisy conditions, and, critically, also their brain activity.” To track brain activity, everyone will have a magnetoencephalography (MEG) scan, a non-invasive test that measures the magnetic fields produced by the brain’s electrical currents. Eligible participants will also have a 15- minute MRI during the study. People tend to prefer a MEG scan to an MRI scan because they’re “quiet and not confining,” Simon pointed out. “We want to see what good things have happened to their brains — how these improvements have made their brains better,” Simon said. Taking part in the study could improve your hearing and pave the way for future scientific developments, he said. “There’s potentially something in it for them and for the greater community.”
If you’re interested in participating in the Speech Perception and High Cognitive Demand study, call (301) 405-5629.

We are a group of researchers at the University of Maryland who seek solutions to speech communication problems of older people.
The overall goal is to improve engagement in social interactions in different settings and with different communication partners, thereby enhancing quality of life.
Our research focuses on training to improve speech understanding in challenging listening situations, including in noise and reverberation, and including the speech of fast talkers or those with foreign accents.