Inner Ear Hair Cell Regeneration — Maybe We Can Know More

that's the idea.

 

Do you know is there are study to prove this idea?

 

It hasn't actually been done yet but the general consensus of the science community is that it will probably be of help.

Studies such as REGAIN have mentioned that they will be monitoring this, even if it's not the primary outcome they will be measuring.

 

What about the nerves that are connected to that hair cell and then ports the cell info to the auditory nerve?
I saw a graphic here somewhere that showed the hair cell getting damaged and the nerves connected to the cell disconnected and then atrophied and non existent. How do they get reconnected or regenerated?

 

Hey man. What do you want? New nerves? New hair cells? Or a steak and cheese?

Earing, sorry... bad joke...
Apologies.

 

I don´t know how, but they have found that new synapses connect to regenerated HC. They described it as a miracle.

 

The initial work to discover this was done in the Heller Lab at Stanford University. One of the people over this lab is Robert Jackler. In a presentation he stated that once the hair cell is regenerated that the nerve regrows and reconnects. He called it a "god darned miracle".

start at around 28:00

Stanford's Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss

 

Using hearing aids usually decreases or eliminates tinnitus while being used.

 

Something I have been wondering about... My "speech in noise" problems aren't horrendous but music is unlistenable. Many people with mostly "hidden hearing loss" seem to enjoy music just fine.

Is it possible macrolide ototoxicity affected the auditory center in my brain stem as well? How would anyone know if they have brainstem involvement with their hearing loss and tinnitus? I'm really hoping this is is not the case for me because that means no treatment on the horizon would help me .

 

Quite the contrary. Bimodal stimulation, for instance, is built to work on our overactive part of the brainstem called Dorsal Cochlear Nucleus (DCN).

 

You mean what if hidden hearing loss is not a problem but the auditory cortex alone is?

All of us with no obvious hearing loss have lots of questions... I mean I got retested and have normal thresholds but yet my tinnitus is very bothersome at the moment. Same with others.

And what if some of those with some hearing loss didn’t even get the tinnitus from hearing deficiencies, it could be a coincidence.

Is there a piece of the puzzle missing? So far that piece has been “hidden hearing loss” but is there more to it as that is only one theory? That’s why I’m more interested in neurons being turned down...

 

If something affected your auditory regions in your brain then I'd expect it to have affected other parts too. If hearing is your main problem my guess is that your issue is in the inner ear.

 

What causes noise induced tinnitus, as I have previously mentioned, is cochlear peripheral neuropathy, which directly affects the auditory cortex as it no longer receives proper input from the nerves endings attached to/located in the cochlear. If these nerve endings (which, by the way, don't regenerate once dead) get fixed, so will your noise induced tinnitus, as your auditory cortex will once again receive the proper inputs it expects.

This also means fixing the stereocilia alone will NOT fix your tinnitus (it may likely improve your hearing however if you have perceivable hearing loss)

 

It sounds weird to say on a tinnitus forum but I'm less concerned with the tinnitus (it sucks don't get me wrong...) than the utter and complete loss of ability to hear undisorted music.

I do have pronounced hearing loss from 11.4 khz and up on pure tone so I know the cochlea is affected, but from what I understand macrolide ototoxicity results in a channelopathy that can simultaneously affect the cochlea *and* the dorsal cochlear nucleus.

I know I have something more than very high frequency hearing loss because I hear distortions in frequencies I can easily hear the pure tones of.

Are there any supplements/regimines or research on the horizon for channelopathies that also affect the potassium ion channels in the brainstem? Anyone know if brainstem toxicity can still heal/improve after 6 months? I'm just hoping it still can.

 

I think it just affects a particular subtype of potassium ion channel (suited for processing very dynamic sound) that occurs in both the cochlea and the brainstem. Macrolide ototoxicity is unique among the ototoxicities. It's also usually reversuble but my Dr put me on an irresponsible and prolonged dose.

 

Of what?

 

Azithromycin, a Macrolide antibiotic.

 

Fasting can put your body into a sort of repair mode.

 

I believe there is a test audiologists use called an Auditory Brainstem Response, which can test retro-cochlear and brainstem involvement in hearing loss. It's common and often used to test hearing loss in infants, who are not able to respond to tone audiometry testing.

 

So drugs like REGAIN, FX-322 and CGF166 for hair cell regeneration will work on both hair cells and nerves?

 

I don't have trouble with pure tone just complex sound. There is certain kind of KV 3 potassium ion channel involved in sound layering, esp dynamic sound. I was told ABR testing would look normal in my case regardless.

 

We don't know. We can only speculate. But I believe I've read somewhere that someone from Frequency Therapeutics said that they had indications that this is the case. That nerves do grow out and attach to the new hair cells.

 

I'm not going to lie, if my doctor prescribed me a medication that gave me tinnitus, I would go to him and punch him in the face a few times.

"Judge, he ruined my life"

The question here is why does the nerve reconnect?

 

What if you have damaged your ears though? If using earbuds and headphones can cause further damage then how is that different from hearing aids?

 

Wouldn't hearing aids only work for people with perceivable hearing loss in the 200Hz-8kHz range?

 

The headphones only complete your lack of hearing, in the frequencies and intensity that is needed. It's like an equalizer with power that makes your ear listen to the same frequencies and with the same sensitivity as a healthy ear. Fills your hearing loss. They also have an exit limit, no more power than the limit of healthy ear can come out.

 

Hearing loss usually manifests towards 3000 - 4000 Hz and intensifies with increasing frequency. Losing hearing at 15,000 Hz is normal, no adult has that frequency at 50 years old. And it does not cause tinnitus, as far as I know. The brain does not miss these frequencies, they are not audible in nature and society. In my case I have a slight acoustic trauma, from -30 dB to 4000 Hz in the left ear, and when I use earphones for TRT, the tinnitus decreases a lot. For me it is a sign that proper hearing will help many people reduce or eliminate their tinnitus.

 

what?

 

Hello
Sorry for my poor skills in this domain but I've just listened Neuromod video and the CEO said that they have animal model to determine if tinnitus are dicreased or not
My question is why nobody use this model in order to know if Inner Ear Hair Cell Regeneration fix or not Tinnitus (due to sound traumatic) !

 

I think this is a good question, will answer from as best I can, please take with a pinch of salt.

In this case a model describes a series of logical steps that would result in observed behavior. A model can be very abstract and is generally validated bit by bit.

Your mistake in logic is thinking of a model like a simulation, that would allow our understanding of'whatifs' to be expanded. We do not have have advanced models that have been rigorously validated. So we don't have enough confidence in our models to simulate t to any degree of benefit.