When the ear hears and the brain puzzles over it

Hearing and understanding are not the same thing: people with hearing loss struggle not only with quieter sounds, but also with distorted and incomplete signals. The brain has to work very hard to fill in the gaps. Simply amplifying sound with hearing aids is therefore often not enough. Neuroscientist Nathalie Giroud is conducting research at the University of Zurich and the University Psychiatric Hospital Zurich into how the brain processes and compensates for spoken language, and how it reaches its limits in doing so. Her findings open up new avenues for auditory training and show how the voice could even serve as an early warning sign for diseases in the future.