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The Journey of Hearing and Hearing-Related Disorders over Time—2nd Edition

A special issue of Journal of Clinical Medicine (ISSN 2077-0383). This special issue belongs to the section "Otolaryngology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 February 2026 | Viewed by 1183

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, 93053 Regensburg, Germany
Interests: digital phenotyping; digital health; tinnitus; hearing; mental health; decision support; ecological momentary assessment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail
Guest Editor
Faculty of Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences, University of Twente, Drienerlolaan 5, 7522 NB Enschede, The Netherlands
Interests: chronic disorders; mental health; mental illness; positive psychology; ecological momentary assessment; big data; digital phenotyping; biostatistics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Building on the foundational insights and groundbreaking research presented in the first edition: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/jcm/special_issues/B57567CJJO, we invite you to contribute to a Special Issue on "The Journey of Hearing and Hearing-Related Disorders over Time—2nd Edition".

Hearing is a critical sense, being a prerequisite for interpersonal communication, perception of the environment, and social interaction. However, hearing competence is not a stable capability but changes over time for various reasons, such as aging, acquired diseases, infections, environmental influences, etc.

Loss of hearing or the development of hearing-related disorders (e.g., tinnitus or hyperacusis) can lead to significant changes in auditory stimulation in the brain and perception of the environment and can trigger behavioral changes in affected persons. These changes are a dynamic process that evolves over time. In principle, we distinguish the natural process over time from processes with clincal interventions.

In this Special Issue, we will collect scientific works that improve our understanding of hearing and/or hearing-related disorders over time, as well as personal and environmental factors influencing these issues. We particularly invite original research that involves the digital phenotyping of people affected by hearing damage and hearing-related disorders.

In general, we welcome original research articles and systematic reviews.

Prof. Dr. Winfried Schlee
Dr. Jorge Piano Simões
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Journal of Clinical Medicine is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • hearing
  • hearing journey
  • hearing-related disorders
  • tinnitus
  • hyperacusis
  • digital phenotyping
  • big data

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Related Special Issue

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 786 KB  
Article
AI-Based Prediction of Bone Conduction Thresholds Using Air Conduction Audiometry Data
by Chul Young Yoon, Junhun Lee, Jiwon Kim, Sunghwa You, Chanbeom Kwak and Young Joon Seo
J. Clin. Med. 2025, 14(18), 6549; https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm14186549 - 17 Sep 2025
Abstract
Background/Objectives: This study evaluated the feasibility of predicting bone conduction (BC) thresholds and classifying air–bone gap (ABG) status using only air conduction (AC) data obtained from pure tone audiometry (PTA). Methods: A total of 60,718 PTA records from five tertiary hospitals in the [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: This study evaluated the feasibility of predicting bone conduction (BC) thresholds and classifying air–bone gap (ABG) status using only air conduction (AC) data obtained from pure tone audiometry (PTA). Methods: A total of 60,718 PTA records from five tertiary hospitals in the Republic of Korea were utilized. Input features included AC thresholds (0.25–8 kHz), age, and sex, while outputs were BC thresholds (0.25–4 kHz) and ABG classification based on 10 dB and 15 dB criteria. Five machine learning models—deep neural network (DNN), long short-term memory (LSTM), bidirectional LSTM (BiLSTM), random forest (RF), and extreme gradient boosting (XGB)—were trained using 5-fold cross-validation with Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique (SMOTE). Model performance was evaluated based on accuracy, sensitivity, precision, and F1 score under ±5 dB and ±10 dB thresholds for BC prediction. Results: LSTM and BiLSTM outperformed DNN in predicting BC thresholds, achieving ~60% accuracy within ±5 dB and ~80% within ±10 dB. For ABG classification, all models performed better with the 10 dB criterion than the 15 dB. Tree-based models (RF, XGB) achieved the highest classification accuracy (up to 0.512) and precision (up to 0.827). Confidence intervals for all metrics were within ±0.01, indicating stable results. Conclusions: AI models can accurately predict BC thresholds and ABG status using AC data alone. These findings support the integration of AI-driven tools into clinical audiology and telemedicine, particularly for remote screening and diagnosis. Future work should focus on clinical validation and implementation to expand accessibility in hearing care. Full article
13 pages, 742 KB  
Article
Does the Patient’s Sex Have an Impact on Beneficial Effects of Ginkgo biloba Extract EGb 761® in Dementia Patients with Tinnitus? Results of a Conditional Process Analysis
by Petra Brueggemann, Marília Grando Sória, Sandra Schlaefke, Petra Funk and Birgit Mazurek
J. Clin. Med. 2025, 14(17), 6313; https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm14176313 - 6 Sep 2025
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Abstract
Background/Objectives: Tinnitus often occurs alongside the emotional symptoms of anxiety and depression. The Ginkgo biloba extract EGb 761® was shown to be effective in reducing neuropsychiatric symptoms in elderly patients with both dementia and tinnitus, exerting direct effects on tinnitus severity [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Tinnitus often occurs alongside the emotional symptoms of anxiety and depression. The Ginkgo biloba extract EGb 761® was shown to be effective in reducing neuropsychiatric symptoms in elderly patients with both dementia and tinnitus, exerting direct effects on tinnitus severity and indirect effects mediated by improvement of anxiety, depression, and cognition. Whether the extent of the effects is influenced by the patient’s sex has not yet been investigated. We performed a conditional process analysis to evaluate this question. Methods: We analyzed the moderating role of sex on the direct and indirect effects of EGb 761® on tinnitus severity using a first- and second-stage conditional process model. Results: Indirect effects of EGb 761® on tinnitus severity mediated by improved cognition, anxiety, and depression did not differ between women and men (p > 0.05; all 95% bootstrap confidence intervals overlapped with zero). Moreover, direct treatment effects of EGb 761® on tinnitus severity were statistically significant for both sexes (women, p < 0.0001; men, p = 0.0279). Conclusions: Beneficial effects of Ginkgo biloba extract EGb 761® in dementia patients with tinnitus are likely to be unaffected by the patient’s sex. Further research into the influence of patient characteristics on the outcome of tinnitus drug treatment is encouraged. Full article
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