§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will give the expenditure of the Medical Research Council for each of the last three years on supporting research which is mainly related to some aspect of deafness; and if she will distinguish between that for the Institute of Hearing Research and that going to other centres.
§ Mr. OakesInformation for 1975–76 is not available. For 1976–77 and 1977–78 it is as follows:
EXPENDITURE BY THE MEDICAL RESEARCHN COUNCIL ON RESEARCH PROJECTS RELEVANT TO DEAFNESS £000 1976–77 1977–78 Total expenditure 728 947 Expenditure at the Institute of Hearing Research 27 194 In addition, £59,000 was spent on building work at the institute in 1977–78.
671W
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will list the new programme grants and the new project grants which the Medical Research Council has made during 1976 and during 1977 which are primarily concerned with aspects of deafness; and what was the total expenditure involved for each year.
§ Mr. OakesNew project grants awarded in the last two financial years are as follows:
Grant Holder and Title of Project
1976–77:
Professor J. R. T. Colley—EEC study of deafness in children.Dr A. C. Crawford—Neurophysiology of the inner ear of a reptile.Mr. E. E. Douek—Speech pattern presentation by single channel extra-cochlear electrical stimulation.Dr. E. F. Evans—
- (i) A correlated study of the physiological and anatomical sequelae of cochlear pathology.
- (ii) An investigation of how the peripheral auditory system can code signals over a wide range of intensity.
Dr. I. J. Russell—An intracellular electro-physiological study of the mammalian cochlear.Mr. M. C. Martin—Development and extension of adaptive audio visual test techniques in audiology under small computer control.Dr. F. Fallside—Improvement of speech and its psychological correlates in deaf persons and development of micro-processor based aid.Mr. J. A. Martin—The microstructure of audition.Dr. S. P. Heywood—The relations between oculomotor control and the perception of stability and displacement.Sir John Gray—Investigations into sensory nervous systems in marine animals.Professor B. M. Sayers—Objective analysis of vestibular nystagmus.1977–78:
672WMr. A. J. Thomas and Mrs. K. R. Gilhome Herbst—Total acquired deafness in adults: implications for mental health.Dr. S. D. Canis—Ototoxicity: studies on auditory nerve fibres contrifugalprocesses, and cochlear morphology.Dr. E. F. Evans—Quantification of deficits in certain auditory functions and evaluation of compensation in cochlear hearing loss.Dr. D. T. Kemp—An objective investigation of human endochochlear acoustic activity.Dr. J. O. Pickles—A comparison of neural and psychophysical frequency resolution in the auditory system of the cat.Dr. Phyllis E. Stopp—Studies of guinea-pig cochlear structures treated with Kanamycin and noise exposure with/without influence of olivo-cochlear bundle.Professor O. C. Whitfield—Effect of cortical lesions on the decomposition of objective 'sensation'.The council's total expenditure on grant-supported work relevant to deafness was about £417,000 in 1976–77 and £503,000 in 1977–78. No new programme grants were made in this period.
§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what was the number of applications for programme grants and project grants primarily for research into deafness which were rejected by the Medical Research Council during 1975, 1976 and 1977.