Seminars in Hearing Research

Date:  September 10, 2026

Location: NLSN 1195

Time: 12:00-1:00pm

Speaker: Thomas Burg, PhD Student, BME

Title: The Effects of Earplugging on Blast-Induced Hearing Loss

Abstract: Blast-induced hearing loss contributes to the high levels of hearing difficulties reported among military personnel. While ear plugs are provided to military personnel for protection, hearing damage still occurs. Blast exposure is a common source of auditory trauma during military operations and can damage both peripheral and central auditory systems in a single exposure, even without tympanic rupture. Previous work in our lab has characterized blast induced damage to peripheral and central auditory pathways at the 14 and 28-day timepoints post-blast, showing loss of OHC integrity as measured by DPOAE, reduction of click ABR amplitudes, and temporal modulation processing impairments. In this project, we look at electrophysiological measures of blast-induced hearing loss shortly after exposure and over a 28-day recovery period and we show the effects of earplugging on protecting the central auditory pathway. Preliminary results show earplugging protects ABR thresholds and measures of cochlear function but fails to protect central auditory systems as measured by envelope following responses (EFRs). Our working hypothesis is that earplugging protects peripheral systems from damage but fails to protect more complex temporal encoding because earplugs protect the cochlea but do protect from blast-induced traumatic brain injury. This work is a crucial step in better understanding blast-induced hearing loss and the role conventional hearing protection plays in protecting from it.

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The working schedule is available here: https://purdue.edu/TPAN/hearing/shrp_schedule

The titles and abstracts of the talks will be added here: https://engineering.purdue.edu/TPAN/hearing/shrp_abstracts