Deaf rats trained to hear sounds

Scientists have managed to train rats with hearing defects to pick out sounds from background noise, giving a possible solution to hearing-impaired children with difficulties in learning language.

Distinguishing speech from background noise, or temporal processing, is important in learning a language. When there are defects in this function, young children may encounter problems learning a language and reading.

In an article published in Nature Neuroscience, scientists in China and the US described how they trained rats with hearing defects to pick out relevant sounds from background noise using food rewards.