Warding Off Hearing Loss with Music?

From NPR News – Morning Edition

Many people have problems understanding conversation around noise. This kind of deterioration of hearing comes from damage to the nerve endings that transmits sounds from our ears to our brains. And as we age it gets worse. How can you stave off that kind of hearing loss? Current research suggests embracing music early in life.

“If you spend a lot of your life interacting with sound in an active manner, then your nervous system has made lots of sound-to-meaning connections” that can strengthen your auditory system, says Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University.