Sharp hearing ‘linked to higher risk of mental health issues’

HAVING unusually good hearing could be a sign of mental health problems, research has found.

People able to make out conversation across a noisy bar or untangle a garbled sentence are more likely to hear hallucinatory voices, according to scientists at University College London and Durham University.

Experiments found that those with a history of hearing imaginary voices had a threein-four chance of discerning a meaningful sentence in computer-distorted sounds, compared to less than half a chance among those without a history.

MRI scans confirmed the region of the brain responsible for monitoring and attention responded better in “voice-hearers”. Up to 15pc of the population hear voices when no one is speaking, although only a fraction of these suffer to a clinically problematic extent, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

The team believes its discovery of an association between auditory verbal hallucinations and better hearing will lead to treatment for mental health problems.

Published in the journal ‘Brain’, the study involved 17 participants with a history of voice-hearing and 17 without. They were played distorted speech known as sine waves, “alien-like” noises which can be understood only if told to listen for certain words.

The voice-hearers picked out the sentence 75pc of the time, compared to 47pc of the non voice-hearers. They also detected the sentence quicker than the non voice-hearers.

MRI scans showed that voice-hearers’ brains automatically responded to sine waves containing language, but not meaningless waves. (© Daily Telegraph, London)