Researchers have developed a new hearing test that uses a smartphone to measure how a patient’s pupils involuntarily change size in response to sound.
University at Buffalo spinout company Auspex Medix is advancing the AI-powered tool that older people can use at home to determine if they need additional health care.
Its New York developers said it aimed to catch hearing loss early, to potentially slow cognitive decline and reduce the risk of dementia, depression and social isolation.
America’s National Institute on Aging recently awarded Auspex Medix, which was founded in 2024, a $252,550 grant to progress the technology.
Auspex Medix founder is Dr Wenyao Xu, professor of computer science and engineering in the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
“Hearing loss is a widespread and often overlooked public health threat that can exacerbate cognitive and functional decline,” he said in A University of Buffalo news release. “To combat this issue, we’re developing a low-cost, AI-powered tool that older adults can use at their own home to determine if they need additional medical care.”
How it works
Neuroscientists, psychologists and other researchers have studied how pupils respond to sound – sometimes called pupillary light reflex or auditory pupil response – for decades.
But Dr Zu believed this was the first time it had been used as a potential biomarker for hearing loss.
The proposed hearing test combines a smartphone with a customised clip-on pupillometer that measures the user’s pupils as a series of sounds play from an app. The data is fed into software on the smartphone, including deep learning algorithms, to be analysed.
“The new test is unique because it does not require active participation from the user,” said co-principal investigator Dr Wei Sun, associate professor in the university’s Department of Communicative Disorders and Science.
“They simply play the sounds, and the smartphone records how their pupils react. This is very important for older adults with cognitive impairments.”
Drs Xu and Dr Sun will work with researchers from Dent Neurologic Institute to enrol older adults from Western New York, including participants with mild cognitive impairment or mild Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, to evaluate the test.
Dr Xu plans to improve the test’s robustness, lower its cost, and make it more user friendly which are key drivers toward commercialising the technology.
“If we can catch hearing loss early, we have a better chance at addressing – and potentially slowing – cognitive decline and a host of other issues such as social isolation, depression, increased fall risk, and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias,” he said.
