Over 70 million people in the U.S. are impacted by hearing loss, and age-related hearing loss is the second most common health problem in older adults, according to the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. However, scientists still do not fully understand how the cochlea—a delicate, spira l-shaped cavity in the inner ear lined with thousands of specialized sensory cells—performs the signal processing needed to separate meaningful sounds from background noise. ...read more read less