A cochlear implant helped Ray Goldsworthy regain his hearing. Now, he’ll use his research — and a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health — to help others with implants connect to music.
When Ray Goldsworthy was 13, he contracted spinal meningitis. Antibiotics saved his life but destroyed the cells in his inner ears responsible for processing sound.
“Within the span of one to two weeks, I went from hearing normally to being completely deaf,” said Goldsworthy, an associate professor of research otolaryngology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
A year later, in 1988, he became one of the first children in the United States to receive a cochlear implant through a pediatric trial.
While cochlear implants restore partial hearing, they can’t compete with the body’s natural hearing ability. Listening to music can be especially frustrating because tunes sound muffled and the implant makes it difficult to identify individual instruments or vocalists.
Since then, Goldsworthy has dedicated his scientific career to helping people with hearing loss. Now, with the help of a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), he is launching a research project aimed at helping the formerly deaf with cochlear implants regain their appreciation for music.
The grant is part of $20 million the NIH has awarded to support the Sound Health Initiative, which investigates the impact of music on the brain. He is one of two USC professors to receive such a grant.
