Watch this page in BSL
One of the four main areas of RNID’s work is biomedical research into hearing loss and tinnitus. We’re working to speed up the development of new treatments for those who want them.
How we work
To do this we work with:
- companies and investors who work in this area.
- the hearing and tinnitus research community
- clinicians like audiologists and Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) doctors
Most of our work revolves around funding research – in universities, hospitals and sometimes in small pharmaceutical companies – with the aim of developing treatments that can:
- Prevent acquired hearing loss, so we can protect people’s hearing from the things that can damage it, such as loud noise and ageing
- Restore or improve someone’s hearing after they have lost it
- Silence tinnitus.
Our areas of research
There are many things that can cause hearing loss and deafness. This can include, ageing, (the biggest cause of hearing loss), exposure to loud noise, certain medicines that cause hearing loss as a side effect, infections such as measles or meningitis or middle ear infections, and head and neck injuries.
We fund research to better understand the processes that are involved in hearing loss due to all these causes and more.
The more we know about these processes, the easier and faster it will be to develop treatments that can prevent hearing loss before it happens or protect someone whose hearing is at risk.
This knowledge may also help us find ways to repair the damage and restore lost hearing.
We want to find ways to repair damage to hearing, so that we can restore hearing to people who have lost it. We do this by funding research into different approaches:
-
- Drug-based treatments, to promote the re-growth of lost cells
-
- Stem cell-based treatments, to replace cells in the inner ear that have been damaged and died
-
- Gene-based treatments, that can encourage the growth of new cells
We also fund research to improve how well devices like hearing aids and cochlear implants work so that people who choose to use them get the best out of them.
There are currently no treatments that can consistently reduce a person’s perception of it, or silence it completely.
We want to change this, so we fund research to understand more about what happens in a person’s ear and brain when they develop tinnitus, and to develop better ways to measure and treat it effectively.
Genetics also plays a role in deafness and hearing loss.
Someone with genetic hearing loss might be born profoundly deaf or with some degree of hearing loss (which may get worse with time), they may develop age-related hearing loss earlier in life (usually as a young adult), or they could be more vulnerable to noise or other damage to their hearing.
Deafness or hearing loss may also occur as part of a genetic syndrome, alongside other conditions. An example of this would be Usher syndrome which causes deafblindness.
We fund research to understand the role of genes that are linked to deafness or hearing loss in the hearing system.
This knowledge is important to help us understand how hearing works in detail so that we can develop treatments to:
-
- prevent acquired hearing loss (this could include genetic hearing loss that develops after someone is born e.g. when they are a young adult)
-
- restore it when it is lost, for example, due to ageing or loud noise exposure.
We know there is a link between hearing loss and dementia – people with age-related hearing loss are more likely to develop dementia than people with normal hearing. However, we don’t understand why this is the case, so we fund research to explain the link. This could lead to:
-
- better ways to diagnose both conditions and prevent them being mistaken for each other
-
- better ways to treat both conditions
-
- an understanding of whether addressing hearing loss, for example, by using hearing aids, can help slow or delay the development of dementia (as we don’t know this currently).
Why our research is crucial
Today, hearing loss is largely managed using hearing aids and cochlear implants.
While these devices bring tremendous benefit to people who use them, they’re not perfect. They don’t work well when there is a lot of background noise, and neither device restores natural hearing. They also can’t delay the onset of hearing loss or the gradual decline in hearing that so many people experience.
There are currently no treatments for tinnitus, only ways to manage it, and these methods don’t work for everyone.
We need to improve existing technology, and develop effective treatments to prevent hearing loss, restore hearing and silence tinnitus. These treatments will transform the lives of people who have hearing loss or tinnitus, both now and in the future.
