Professional singers are exposed to high levels of vocal strain, which leads to a high prevalence of voice disorders within this occupational group. As part of appropriate phoniatric and musicians' medicine care, particular attention must be paid to the prevention of voice disorders as early as during the university training stage. In the healthcare sector, prevention has taken on growing importance since the introduction of the Prevention Act in 2015. It seems sensible to embed the teaching of preventive measures within the curriculum for singers' university training. Drawing on their dual qualifications as phoniatricians and singers and based on their many years' teaching experience at universities of music, the authors present a curriculum for the subject 'voice physiology and vocal health', which equips students with a scientific understanding of the physiological mechanisms of the voice and enables them to practice active prevention in the field of vocal health. The modularized curriculum content of the subject is designed to impart physiological and acoustic knowledge of vocal function and hearing, as well as the fundamentals of vocal health, vocal hygiene and the prevention of vocal disorders. The module should be established as a compulsory component of the bachelor's degree programme in vocal performance and comprise in total thirty 45-minute teaching units over the course of one or two semesters. In addition to its inclusion in the curriculum, there is a need for continuous professional learning in this area, both for the specialist medical professions primarily responsible for patient care (phoniatrics/paedaudiology, otorhinolaryngology, musicians' medicine) and for singers.

Venous pulsatile tinnitus and tinnitus-like symptoms associated with internal jugular venous outflow disturbance represent an emerging clinical topic with specific diagnostic and management challenges. A narrative review was conducted using English-language literature identified through searches of PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. The review focused on studies published through February 2026 that addressed venous pulsatile tinnitus, internal jugular vein stenosis or compression, cerebral venous outflow disturbance, imaging and hemodynamic assessment, and management strategies. This review summarizes current evidence on vascular anatomy, clinical presentation, pathophysiological mechanisms, imaging evaluation, and treatment. Structural venous abnormalities and external compression may produce disturbed flow and local vascular sound, particularly in classical venous pulsatile tinnitus, whereas venous congestion, intracranial pressure dysregulation, altered cerebral perfusion, and central auditory plasticity remain proposed mechanisms for other tinnitus-like symptoms. MRI/MRV, CTV/CTA, and Doppler ultrasonography provide complementary anatomical and hemodynamic information. Invasive angiography is reserved for selected patients, with venous manometry added when pressure-gradient assessment is clinically relevant. Management options include conservative care, intracranial pressure management, endovascular treatment, surgical decompression, and supportive tinnitus therapy. However, current evidence is derived mainly from selected retrospective cohorts and small case series and does not establish the prevalence or causal contribution of IJVOD in unselected patients with venous pulsatile tinnitus. Standardized terminology, validated diagnostic criteria, improved patient selection, and prospective multicenter studies are required to enhance diagnostic confidence and enable robust assessment of long-term outcomes.

Hearing loss affects over 1.5 billion people worldwide and has substantial social, educational, and economic consequences. Although genetic studies have identified numerous hearing-loss-associated genes, the molecular changes accompanying noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) remain incompletely understood. We characterized the adult mouse cochlear proteome following damaging noise exposure using nano-LC-MS/MS and an integrative bioinformatics workflow. Comparative profiling of normal-hearing and NIHL cochleae identified 1742 proteins and an 80-protein NIHL-associated signature comprising 49 quantitatively defined differentially abundant proteins and 31 condition-specific proteins. These proteins were organized into five functional groups encompassing metabolic and mitochondrial function, protein synthesis and ribonucleoprotein complexes, structural and synaptic organization, cell polarity and cytoskeletal remodeling, and regulatory and stress-responsive functions. Representative alterations included reduced HSPA9, a mitochondrial chaperone involved in protein homeostasis; changes in the RNA-associated proteins PRMT1 and CIRBP; reduced HAPLN1, associated with extracellular matrix organization; and altered MAP2K2, a signaling protein related to cell polarity; and increased SYNJ2. Comparison with an independent cochlear proteomic data set identified 39 of the 80 proteins as dysregulated, with 22 showing concordant directional changes. Single-cell transcriptomic mapping provided cellular context for 74 of the 80 protein-associated genes, while human genetic and disease annotations supported the prioritization of selected proteins associated with hearing or ear phenotypes. Together, these findings define a proteomic landscape of the noise-exposed cochlea and identify molecular candidates and cellular processes for further investigation of NIHL.

Adults generate causally structured situation models during comprehension and use them to predict upcoming referents. In an eye-tracked comprehension task, 36-month-olds (N = 115) did the same, using story-provided information to predict which character could plausibly be mentioned next. In critical sentences, such as "She asked the goose with the boots to play with her," children treated "the goose" as unambiguous even in a story with two geese, looking toward the target animal before disambiguating information arrived if one goose was described as having left the scene earlier in the story. Success in this task implies predictive use of a situation model to infer reference to a still-present character. Individual differences in language skills predicted inference generation, and exploratory analyses suggested children with language delay did not generate these inferences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Tinnitus is one of the most common hearing disorders affecting one-third of Americans and is defined as the buzzing or ringing sound one perceives in one or both ears in the absence of an acoustic stimulus. One objective method for tinnitus screening in rodents is gap prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle reflex (GPIAS), a reduction in the abrupt motor response elicited by an intense auditory stimulus following a silent gap in noise. Reduced inhibition by gaps embedded in narrow-band noise is hypothesized to reflect the primary tinnitus pitch, as the tinnitus "fills-in" the gap. However, Lobarinas et al. (2013) identified a critical limitation: after acoustic trauma or hearing loss, rodents often exhibit markedly diminished acoustic startle reflexes, creating a "floor effect" where further suppression becomes undetectable even if gap perception remains intact, leading to false-positive tinnitus screening results. To address this limitation, we utilized the CBA/CaJ mouse model to assess tactile airpuff modification efficacy and employed a machine learning algorithm to classify startle responses, achieving 98% accuracy in differentiating startles from non-startles. We induced unilateral conductive hearing loss via ear plugging and found enhanced gap detection ability, contrasting with false-positive tinnitus indicators observed in rats by Lobarinas and colleagues. We also pharmacologically induced tinnitus via sodium salicylate, revealing frequency-specific alterations in gap detection patterns. Our findings suggest that differences in data analysis methodology, specifically using a machine learning algorithm to filter non-startle responses, may explain species-specific differences between mouse and rat models and significantly improve GPIAS validity as a tinnitus screening assessment tool.

Aging has profound effects on sensory systems, such that older adults can report problems in hearing despite having normal audiometric thresholds. While it is known that older listeners have poorer temporal processing than younger listeners, there is limited understanding of how these deficits interact with effects of sound level, in particular when they are above conversational level (e.g., > 65 dB SPL). Here we wanted to investigate the link between temporal processing and sound level as a function of age in normal-hearing listeners. Using a forward-masking paradigm, auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) and behavioral detection thresholds were measured at different masker levels. It was found that with increasing age and masker sound level, older listeners' Wave V amplitudes decreased and directly correlated with behavioral detection thresholds of the probe stimulus in the forward-masking paradigm. These results elucidate the fundamental effects of aging on temporal processing and its interactions with sound level in the central auditory system. The results of this study have clinical implications for the concept of "normal hearing" in the aging population and how older listeners may struggle in different listening environments that are not captured by simple audiometry. Further delineating the important effects of aging will pave the way for earlier clinical diagnosis of hearing disorders and personalized treatments for different forms of age-related hearing loss.

Otitis media with effusion is common in children with cleft palate because of persistent Eustachian tube dysfunction. It can lead to conductive hearing loss, which may affect language development. Regular otologic and audiologic monitoring, tailored to the child's age and level of cooperation, is therefore necessary. Management relies on monitoring combined with supportive measures, including adjustments to the school environment. Depending on the functional impact of the hearing loss, tympanostomy tube insertion, conservative measures, or even hearing aids may be considered. The expected hearing benefit must be weighed against the risk of complications, particularly with repeated insertions or long-term grommets.

Meniere's disease and vestibular migraine are common episodic vestibular syndromes whose overlapping vertigo, auditory, and migraine-associated features can complicate differential diagnosis. In this narrative review, we compared the diagnostic criteria, symptom patterns, pathophysiology, and complementary test findings of these syndromes. Vestibular migraine is diagnosed clinically based on recurrent vestibular symptoms, migraine history, temporal association with migraine features, and exclusion of alternative causes; audiological and vestibular evaluations are not required. In contrast, diagnosis of definite Meniere's disease is made if the patient exhibits episodic vertigo with audiometrically documented low- to medium-frequency sensorineural hearing loss and fluctuating aural symptoms. Therefore, serial audiometry plays a direct role in the diagnosis of Meniere's disease, whereas caloric testing, video head impulse testing, vestibular-evoked myogenic potentials, and hydrops imaging provide supportive rather than standalone discriminatory evidence. Emerging studies have identified distinct cytokine and immune signatures between Meniere's disease and vestibular migraine. In one research cohort, an interleukin-1 beta, CC motif chemokine ligand 3, CC motif chemokine ligand 22, and CXC motif chemokine ligand 1 cytokine panel has demonstrated high discriminatory performance (area under the curve = 0.995), whereas multiomic studies have identified divergent immune-cell pathways. However, external validation and standardized clinical thresholds are required before these approaches can be adopted for routine diagnosis. In practice, differentiation should be anchored in longitudinal history and consensus criteria, supplemented by serial hearing assessment and targeted vestibular or imaging studies when clinically indicated.