Wednesday 17, June 2026. Online.

Kate started the meeting by welcoming all members including new members to our second online meeting.

The meeting objectives were to:

1. Discuss the topic of hearing loss and anxiety.

Kate welcomed Dr Bethan Impey, a Consultant Psychiatrist and researcher to present. The title of Bethan’s presentation was ‘Exploring the links between hearing loss and susceptibility to developing anxiety’. Bethan introduced the topic of anxiety and highlighted that some anxiety day-to-day is normal. It becomes anxiety disorder when it starts to affect day-to-day functioning and causes increasing levels of distress. The symptoms for anxiety include a mix of anxious thoughts and physical feelings of anxiety such as sweating, shaking and a racing heart. Different types of anxiety disorders include generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, PTSD, OCD, phobias, separation anxiety disorder.

Bethan described the complex interplay between the external senses and the brain and the brain and the internal sensing system. There are overlaps in the brain regions that are involved in anxiety processing, processing of the external senses and processing of those internal senses as well. An aim of Bethan’s research is to better understand how the brain regions and processing overlap in anxiety and hearing loss.

Bethan went on to describe the research study she is carrying out. For this she is using a model system to study anxiety. The model involves people breathing air that contains a greater proportion of carbon dioxide than the air around us. The higher proportion of carbon dioxide can trigger a mild anxiety response (which resolves within a few minutes of breathing normal air). Even though breathing in carbon dioxide isn’t the typical reason people get anxious day-to-day, the model has previously been used many times and has helped us to understand more about anxiety. In the study people with hearing loss and people with hearing in the normal range (who do not have an anxiety disorder) breathe in air with a greater proportion of carbon dioxide.

Bethan provided an update on recruitment for the study so far then opened the floor to discussion. Lots of great questions and comments were shared. The group agreed that this was an important topic and worthy of further discussion in a future meeting.

Kate closed the meeting by thanking members for coming.

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