Fatima Husain, a professor of speech and hearing science, will present "Missing sounds and hearing unwanted sounds: The neuroscience of hearing disorders" at the Beckman Institute Director's Seminar at noon on Thursday, Nov. 2 in 1005 Beckman. Lunch will be provided.

Registration is required to attend.

"Missing sounds and hearing unwanted sounds: The neuroscience of hearing disorders"

Hearing loss is the difficulty in sensing and understanding some or all frequencies of sound. It is the third most common chronic condition, and by 2050, nearly 2.5 billion people are predicted to have some degree of hearing loss. Tinnitus, which often co-occurs with hearing loss, is paradoxically the presence of an often-intrusive sound in the absence of an external source. Neither has a cure yet, but strategies like amplification and counseling help mitigate their effect on communication and quality of life. For the past 15 years, my lab has studied these conditions holistically, to understand their neural mechanisms and their effect on the individual. More recently, we have turned our attention to the study of little-understood sound tolerance disorders that are also highly prevalent, such as, hyperacusis (loudness of everyday sounds is bothersome) and misophonia (specific sounds are extremely bothersome despite being soft, like chewing). In this talk, I will report on impactful studies from our lab on the brain bases of hearing loss, tinnitus, hyperacusis, and misophonia.

Fatima T. Husain is a professor of speech and hearing science, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the College of Applied Health Sciences, and an affiliate of the Neuroscience Program. At Beckman, she conducts research in the Mechanisms of Cognitive Control Working Group. Prior to joining UIUC, Fatima worked as a research scientist at the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders at the National Institutes of Health. She has researched and published widely on the neuroscience of hearing disorders and is the immediate past chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee at the American Tinnitus Association. Recently, she led an international project that consolidated brain imaging data related to hearing loss.