ENT doctors and medical students attend UNIC lecture by Harvard academic

A guest lecture on hidden hearing loss and tinnitus brought together ENT doctors and medical students on Tuesday, 12 May 2026, for a discussion on one of the less visible challenges in hearing assessment.

The lecture, titled Hidden hearing loss, tinnitus, and the limits of clinical assessment, was delivered by Dr Stéphane Maison, Director of the Massachusetts Eye & Ear Tinnitus Clinic in Boston, USA, and Associate Professor of Otolaryngology at Harvard Medical School.

Held at the Jean Monnet Amphitheatre, the event focused on groundbreaking work at the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories, Mass Eye and Ear Tinnitus Clinic, and Harvard Medical School, on the phenomenon known as ‘hidden hearing loss’. Research by Dr Maison and colleagues has advanced understanding of patients who report difficulty hearing speech in noisy environments despite having normal hearing test results. The work showed that standard audiograms may fail to detect damage to the connections between sensory hair cells and auditory nerve fibres, known as cochlear synaptopathy. Current translational work in this area aims to improve diagnosis and support the development of therapies intended to restore these neural connections, with some treatment strategies now moving towards clinical application.

The lecture was introduced by Prof. Vered Aharonson, Programme Lead in Digital Healthcare at the Medical School. Attendance included both ENT specialists and medical students, pointing to the wider clinical and educational interest in conditions that sit at the intersection of auditory neuroscience, diagnosis, and patient-centred care.

The event formed part of an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility academic exchange programme.