An illustration of the cochlear
Video, 28 mins

How the Brain "Talks Back" to the Ears

Your brain doesn’t just hear sound – it talks back to your ears. Find out how this works and why it matters for hearing loss.

How the ear “talks” to the brain is intuitive; sound enters the ear and cells detect it, then pass this information to the brain to be pieced it back together. But the brain provides feedback to the ears, and how this functions is less intuitive and not yet understood.

Adam will introduce the concepts of how we think this feedback works, demonstrate this with an audio exercise, and discuss why researching this system is important for the treatment of hearing loss.

This talk was part of Pint of Science, an annual worldwide science festival bringing researchers and the public together. Find out more here.

Credits

Correct as of content publication - 08/07/2025

See also