We are thrilled to announce that Nina Kraus, Ph.D., will present a virtual keynote address at the Mild Traumatic Brain Injury Symposium from 4 - 5 p.m. Join the meeting.

Hearing, Concussion and Sound Processing in the Brain

Making sense of sound is one of the hardest jobs we ask our brains to do. With millisecond precision, the auditory system must not only encode important sound ingredients, but also assign meaning. In her award-winning book, OF SOUND MIND: How Our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World, Dr. Nina Kraus examines the important partnership between sound and the brain, showing that auditory processing drives many of the brain’s core functions and leaves a fundamental imprint on who we are as human beings.

A hurting brain can disrupt this intricate and delicate listening process. Through her NIH-funded longitudinal study examining the effects of sports-related concussion and participation in contact and collision sports in Big 10 collegiate student-athletes and children, her group, Brainvolts, has shown that a concussion can harm the hearing brain. Even a mild traumatic brain injury can disrupt the auditory system’s ability to encode sound and understanding in noise.

The sounds and activities of our lives shape our brains, for better and for worse. Brainvolts’ scientific approach can help us improve concussion diagnosis, ensure player safety and build a healthier sonic world.

Dr. Kraus is Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences, Neurobiology, and Otolaryngology at Northwestern University. As a biologist and amateur musician she thinks about sound and brain health.

Her research has found that our lives in sound, for better (musicians, bilinguals) and for worse (concussion, hearing loss, language disorders, noise), shape how our brain makes sense of the sounds we hear. Her book OF SOUND MIND - How our Brain Constructs a Meaningful Sonic World, was written for the intellectually curious.

Kraus advocates for biologically informed choices in education, health, and society. See www.brainvolts.northwestern.edu for more information.