Hearing Loss Identified using Eye Imaging Technique

Reported October 15, 2013
Hearing Loss Identified using Eye Imaging Technique
By Evan Wofford, Ivanhoe Health Correspondent

(Ivanhoe Newswire) – A technique used to create images of your retina is now being repurposed to help identify hearing loss in patients, Brain Applegate, PhD, Director of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Texas A&M University, told Ivanhoe at the Frontiers in Optics Conference in Orlando, Fla.

Conditions like hearing loss, vertigo, and disequilibrium are the result of damage to the cochlea, part of the inner ear. There’s no cure for these conditions, and doctors have a hard time identifying them using MRI and CT scans, because the images are not clear enough.

Using a technique called optical coherence tomography (OCT), which is similar to an ultrasound but uses light waves instead of sound waves, images of the cochlea can be shown in extreme detail. The technique is also very sensitive to small scale motion.

“[With OCT] we can’t just tell [patients] that they do have hearing loss, but also why,” Dr. Applegate told Ivanhoe. “This is important in developing effective treatments down the road.”

For more information, go to: http://www.opticsinfobase.org/abstract.cfm?URI=FiO-2013-FW4A.3

SOURCE: “Morphological and Functional Imaging of the Cochlea with Optical Coherence Tomography,” Brain Applegate, Frontiers in Optics 2013/Laser Science XXIX Conference, October 9 2013, Orlando, Fla.

 

Awesome! I can't for this new technology to be applied in the next fifty years.

 

don't be so sarcastic t-man, maybe 40 years !

 

I had one Doc tell me that my tinnitus was the result of the tiny hair in the cochlea being pressed down and damaged, so they constantly send a signal to the brain.

This technology would be able to put that theory to rest.

Any updates on OCT?
Will Obamacare get us any closer to having an OCT scan done on anyone in the middle class or lower? ;]