Sex and environment : the ear under influence

A study published in Scientific Reports by researchers from CRBE, explores the combined impact of biological and environmental factors on the hearing sensitivity of 450 individuals in thirteen populations around the world.

By measuring the participants' response to acoustic otoemissions, the researchers discovered that gender and environment (altitude, urbanity) influence sound perception, well before the effects of age, overturning conventional wisdom. This research, led by Patricia Balaresque, CNRS research fellow with the CRBE DEEP team, the Eco-Anthropologie (EA) laboratory and the Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse (IRIT), traces the contours of a new era in audiology, in which the understanding of auditory mechanisms takes into account individual specificities and life contexts.

https://crbe.cnrs.fr/en/sexe-et-environnement-loreille-sous-influence/

See also

Balaresque, P., Delmotte, S., Delehelle, F., Moreira, A., Saenz-Oyhéréguy, N., Croze, M., Hegay, T., Aripova, T., Bomin, S. L., Mennecier, P., Descouens, D., Cussat-Blanc, S., Luga, H., Guevara, A., D’Amato, M. E., King, T., Mollereau, C. & Heyer, E. (2025). Sex and environment shape cochlear sensitivity in human populations worldwide. Scientific Reports, 15, 10475. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-92763-6