The cause of auditory neuropathy isn’t known, but researchers suspect that a number of factors may be responsible, including damage to: When someone has auditory neuropathy, some of the structures within the ear may be working perfectly, but the information from the ear may be distorted on its way to the brain. The electrical impulses are interpreted by the brain and the sound is ‘heard’. The brain stem is located at the base of the skull, and is considered the ‘bridge’ between the brain and the spinal cord. brain – the impulse is sent by the cochlear nerve along the eighth cranial nerve to the auditory pathways in the brain stem.Tiny hair-like nerve endings within the cochlea sense the vibration and pass the message – interpreted into electrical impulses – to the cochlear nerve inner ear – the amplified sound waves are picked up by a little spiral-shaped organ called the cochlea.
The movement is amplified by tiny bones within the middle ear The eardrum moves in response to sound waves. middle ear – separated from the outer ear by the eardrum.Sounds are funnelled into the middle ear by the outer ear The different structures involved in hearing include: Many of the symptoms of auditory neuropathy can also be caused by more common types of hearing loss. worsened speech perception in noisy environments.normal hearing but with poor speech perception.difficulty understanding spoken words (speech perception).The symptoms of auditory neuropathy vary from one person to the next, and can fluctuate. For example, the hearing of a person diagnosed with auditory neuropathy may improve, deteriorate or remain unchanged, and there is no way to predict the outcome. Symptoms of auditory neuropathy can sometimes vary for example, a person may experience both improvements and deteriorations in their hearing. Hearing and understanding speech may be improved by the use of hearing aids or cochlear implants. In some cases, the affected person can hear, but has difficulty understanding spoken words, particularly in noisy environments. Auditory neuropathy is sometimes referred to as a form of neural or nerve deafness. Both ears are usually affected, and the hearing loss ranges from mild to severe.
It is caused by disruption of the nerve impulses travelling from the inner ear to the brain, although what causes this is unknown, and there is no cure. Auditory neuropathy is a rare type of hearing loss.
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