LISTEN — Liaison in Scientific Training for European auditory Neuroscience

Results in brief

Liaison in Scientific Training for European auditory Neuroscience

Hearing loss is a rapidly expanding health concern, which has a devastating social impact, reducing our ability to have a conversation in noisy environments, and consigning the deaf to social isolation. Hearing loss can have other debilitating consequences, as sufferers begin to hear phantom sounds; these are loud, distracting and imaginary sounds, known as tinnitus. Although tinnitus is typically preceded by hearing loss, it is usually not generated in the ear, but is ‘created’ by the brain. The general consensus is that tinnitus results from abnormal excitability in the central auditory system, but neither the location of the problem nor the exact plasticity processes underlying tinnitus are well understood. The LISTEN (Liaison In Scientific Training for European auditory Neuroscience) training network consisted of European auditory neuroscientists working with several European companies to improve hearing aids (including cochlear implants) and pharmacological treatments for tinnitus and hearing loss. The overall objectives for LISTEN were: 1) To elucidate how the auditory system encodes complex sounds, both in normal and compromised hearing. 2) To study the underlying mechanisms of tinnitus, and test possible pharmacological treatments. 3) To train 10 ESRs to acquire technical skills and broader knowledge necessary in modern neuroscience research, while also learning to relate and translate their work for industrial and clinical applications. The LISTEN project has led to new, fundamental insights into the question how the auditory system deals with the large range of sound intensities and sound frequencies it has to encode, how attention can modulate the encoding of the location of sounds, or the way the brain detects novel sounds. Moreover, mechanisms underlying different forms of hearing loss were elucidated, and some of the functional changes in the brain that occur in tinnitus were studied in detail. Finally, the LISTEN project has successfully trained 10 ESRs as auditory neuroscientists, which either have defended their thesis or are preparing to do so this year.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

This ITN will train 10 ESRs to meet the urgent need for translation of Auditory Neuroscience into commercial and pharmaceutical products to treat hearing disorders including tinnitus. Tinnitus is the debilitating perception of imaginary sound that is often associated with hearing loss. This Liaison in Scientific Training for European auditory Neuroscience (LISTEN) is a consortium of top hearing scientists in industry and academia, who specialize in hearing mechanisms and translation to commercial applications, enabling broad career opportunities for our ESRs. The multidisciplinary training environment includes leading labs and companies from 7 EU states, specialized in research, drug and instrumental development. Hearing is vulnerable to noise trauma, medication and aging, and in the future hearing loss will be one of thetop ten disease burdens for Europe. Europe must rapidly exploit academic knowledge to invest in treatments for hearing disorders including drug development. Young scientists entering this field must acquire a broad and detailed background in neuroscience, acoustics, biophysics and signal processing, and employ genetic, molecular, pharmacology, anatomy and imaging methods. No single European institute can encompass this, but together, our LISTEN network will enable young scientists and entrepreneurs to unravel hearing mechanisms and design the next-generation of treatments. Work Package 1 (WP1) focuses on neural coding of sounds from the cochlea to neocortex, including auditory processing for localizing sounds and complex cognitive tasks in both normal hearing and following hearing loss. WP2 will identify molecular and genetic mechanisms of the hyperexcitability underlying tinnitus, exploit new techniques for monitoring tinnitus and develop new drug therapies. Integration of the WPs will enable new insights into disease mechanisms and WP3 will provide the ESRs with an essential multidisciplinary background for their research and successful careers.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

ERASMUS UNIVERSITAIR MEDISCH CENTRUM ROTTERDAM · RotterdamCoordinatorNetherlands
ECOLE NORMALE SUPERIEURE · ParisFrance
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA SANTE ET DE LA RECHERCHE MEDICALE · ParisFrance
KING'S COLLEGE LONDON · LondonUnited Kingdom
UNIVERSIDAD DE SALAMANCA · SalamancaSpain
UNIVERSITAETSMEDIZIN DER JOHANNES GUTENBERG-UNIVERSITAET MAINZ · MainzGermany
UNIVERSITAETSMEDIZIN GOETTINGEN - GEORG-AUGUST-UNIVERSITAET GOETTINGEN - STIFTUNG OEFFENTLICHEN RECHTS · GoettingenGermany
UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER · LeicesterUnited Kingdom

LISTEN · Liaison in Scientific Training for European auditory Neuroscience

Results in brief

Liaison in Scientific Training for European auditory Neuroscience

Project objective

Participants

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