There is an informative article in the August 2015 edition of Scientific American magazine on “Hidden Hearing Loss.” After exposure to loud noise people experience ringing in the ears and muffled hearing. We used to think that when these symptoms went away that the ear recovered and permanent hearing loss was avoided. However, the article explains,there is damage that persists and the traditional audiogram can show normal hearing for years even if neural damage is present. Two areas of research developing from this news are 1. How we can have a more sensitive hearing test that can show the neural damage and 2. What we can do to mitigate the effects of noise exposure so that the damage isn’t permanent. It is a very interesting article and I highly recommend it.