NoiseExposure

  • Research type

    Research Study

  • Full title

    Understanding the Consequences of Recreational Noise Exposure

  • IRAS ID

    295085

  • Contact name

    Susan Francis

  • Contact email

    susan.francis@nottingham.ac.uk

  • Sponsor organisation

    University of Nottingham

  • Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier

    NA, NA

  • Duration of Study in the UK

    4 years, 8 months, 31 days

  • Research summary

    This study aims to establish whether there are any measures we can take of the human hearing system and the route sound signals take to the brain that can help us understand, identify and predict hearing loss.

    We plan to use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), a set of non-invasive techniques for imaging the brain and the nerves. We plan to image the network of nerves that connect the ear to the brain, and see how healthy they look, thereby characterising a healthy human hearing system (group 1, 18-19 year olds). We plan to take the same measures in older adults (group 2, 30-50 year olds) to characterise the healthy system in older adults, in addition to comparably-aged adults with high levels of noise exposure incurred through recreational or work activities (group 3, 30-50 year olds) and also those with some degree of hearing loss that is likey to be related to noise exposure (group 4, 30-50 year olds).

    Using all this data, we want to try and determine the relative contributions of age and noise exposure to any signs of damage visible on the MRI scans.
    We want to determine how strongly measures of the health of the human hearing system are related to each other.

  • REC name

    London - Stanmore Research Ethics Committee

  • REC reference

    21/LO/0615

  • Date of REC Opinion

    21 Sep 2021

  • REC opinion

    Further Information Favourable Opinion