Summary:
A University at Buffalo spinout, Auspex Medix, is developing an AI-powered hearing test that detects hearing loss by way of patients’ eyes by measuring involuntary pupil responses to sound, offering a low-cost, home-based alternative for older adults, including those with cognitive impairments.
Key Takeaways:
- The technology uses a smartphone and clip-on pupillometer to analyze how pupils react to sound, eliminating the need for user participation.
- Backed by a National Institute on Aging grant and UB entrepreneur programs, the project targets early detection of hearing loss to help slow cognitive and functional decline.
- Researchers will test the device among older adults—including those with mild cognitive impairment or early Alzheimer’s—to evaluate its potential as a new biomarker for hearing loss.
Hearing loss among older adults is linked to cognitive decline, the increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, and other issues such as depression and social isolation.
Yet most older adults do not receive regular hearing checks, often because they lack access to audiological services or are unwilling to admit they may have a hearing problem.
Even if someone experiencing cognitive decline receives a hearing test, the results may be inconclusive because the patient may not properly understand the instructions they receive.
University at Buffalo spinout company Auspex Medix is addressing these challenges by developing a new hearing test that measures how a patient’s pupils involuntarily change size in response to sound.
“Hearing loss is a widespread and often overlooked public health threat that can exacerbate cognitive and functional decline,” says Auspex Medix founder Wenyao Xu, PhD, professor of computer science and engineering in the University at Buffalo School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. “To combat this issue, we’re developing a low-cost, AI-powered tool that older adults can use at their own home to determine if they need additional medical care.”
Auspex Medix, founded in 2024, was recently awarded a $252,550 grant from the National Institute on Aging to advance the technology.
Biomarker for Hearing Loss
Neuroscientists, psychologists, and other researchers have studied how pupils respond to sound—sometimes referred to as pupillary light reflex or auditory pupil response—for decades. But this is the first time, Xu believes, that it has been used as a potential biomarker for hearing loss.
The proposed hearing test combines a smartphone with a customized clip-on pupillometer that measures the user’s pupils as a series of sounds play from an app. That data is then fed into software on the smartphone, including deep learning algorithms, to be analyzed.
“The new test is unique because it does not require active participation from the user. They simply play the sounds, and the smartphone records how their pupils react. This is very important for older adults with cognitive impairments,” says co-principal investigator Wei Sun, PhD, associate professor in the UB Department of Communicative Disorders and Science.
Xu and Sun will work with researchers from Dent Neurologic Institute to enroll older adults from Western New York, including participants with mild cognitive impairment or mild Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, to evaluate the test.
Auspex Supported by UB Entrepreneur Programs
The project is supported by UB’s Business and Entrepreneur Partnerships (BEP) office.
Auspex Medix has received funding from UB’s Center of Excellence in Bioinformatics and Life Sciences (CBLS), and it operates from Incubator @ Baird, which is an incubator space near UB’s North Campus. Both CBLS and the incubator are administered by BEP.
Additionally, Auspex Medix will receive funding from the UB Center for Advanced Technology in Big Data and Health Sciences—a BEP-managed grant program that is funded by Empire State Development’s Division of Science, Technology and Innovation program—to match its National Institute on Aging funding.
Auspex Medix has also received BEP support filing a patent application, and it employs student assistants through BEP’s Career Experience Program.
Xu plans to improve the test’s robustness, lower its cost, and make it more user friendly—all key drivers toward commercializing the technology.
“If we can catch hearing loss early, we have a better chance at addressing—and potentially slowing—cognitive decline and a host of other issues such as social isolation, depression, increased fall risk, and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias,” Xu says.
Featured image: The test that measures how a patient’s pupils involuntarily change size in response to sound. Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki, University at Buffalo.
