ABSTRACT
The damage to the auditory pathway may take place both in the inner ear (sensory loss) and in the auditory nerve (neural loss). We exphasize that the damage may be in both areas (as the name sensorineural indicates), but it is possible in many cases to pinpoint the diagnosis specifically as being either a sensory or a neural type. If it can be established that the major damage to the auditory pathway is in the inner ear, the case is classified as a sensory hearing loss. If the chief damage is in the fibers of the eighth nerve proper rather than in the inner ear, it is classified as a neural hearing loss.
