Automatic test to pinpoint types of hearing damage
Official title: An analytical technique to evaluate early auditory evoked potential morphology
Funded at Utah State University · NIH-11241156 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project tests an automated way to read tiny brain responses to sound to help people with hearing loss know which part of their hearing system is affected.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R21 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Utah State University NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Logan, United States) |
| Project start | December 6, 2024 |
| Project end | November 30, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $182,943 |
| NIH project number | 5R21DC021756-02 |
| Project ID | NIH-11241156 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are adults with unexplained or variable hearing loss who are willing to have auditory brain responses recorded during a clinic visit.
✕Less likely to help
People with only routine, well-characterized conductive hearing loss or those unable to tolerate scalp sensors may not gain direct benefit from this work.
What this research studies
You would sit for a routine hearing session where sounds are played and sensors record early brain responses (auditory evoked potentials). Researchers will use automated algorithms and AI to extract detailed features from those waveforms instead of relying on slow visual inspection. The goal is to remove manual tuning so the method works across different datasets and users, potentially including comparisons with animal or lab data to improve the models. If accepted to participate, your recordings could help create a tool that identifies sensory versus nerve problems more reliably than typical hearing tests.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this could give people clearer, more tailored information about which part of their hearing system is damaged, guiding better treatment choices.
How similar studies have gone: Previous automatic AEP methods exist but often needed manual adjustments; this project aims to further automate and generalize those approaches, so it is partially building on prior work but has new elements.
Where this research is happening
-
Utah State University
Logan, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Kamerer, Aryn — Utah State University
- Study coordinator: Kamerer, Aryn
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.