Inner Ear Hair Cell Regeneration — Maybe We Can Know More

“The most significant aspect of the current study is the fact that the fully mature mammalian inner ear still retains the capacity to divide and regenerate if it is sufficiently reprogrammed, which removes a fundamental barrier that has prevented the inner-ear regeneration necessary for hearing restoration,” Chen added.

Does it mean it would be a silver bullet ?

 

Let's hope so...

By the way I see you are French and live in the South... have you ever considered consulting Cilcare in Montpellier?

https://www.cilcare.com/who-we-are-2/

 

@Rogi Cetpla
you remind me of the approach I made to them :

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...rch-tinnitus-hl-treatments.17305/#post-371344

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...rch-tinnitus-hl-treatments.17305/#post-371679

In fact, this is a company dedicated to labs which want to develop their products (in order to speed up their process), so their "consulting" web page is aimed to other businesses and not patients. This is not a tinnitus clinic at all.

https://www.cilcare.com/our-services/consulting/

I did not recontact them since. Maybe I should to see if there has been a big step forward in their research. I will first check their website thoroughly.

 

There is this piece of news (dated 12/13/2019) :

CILCARE & GREENSEA, LAUREATES WITH THEIR PROJECT: “MICROALGAE, AN INNOVATIVE TREATMENT FOR TINNITUS”

https://www.cilcare.com/cilcare-gre...roalgae-an-innovative-treatment-for-tinnitus/

 

Thank you for the information... please let me know if you recontact them.

I understand that Montpellier is an important centre in France for tinnitus research.

I also found this site:
http://www.inmfrance.com/inmfrance-j3/index.php/en/

I am currently in Switzerland and would also consider travelling to France if worthwhile.

Let's stay in touch.

By the way I also recently came across an interview on YouTube (herewith) with Alain Londero, a French ENT surgeon based in Paris, who seems to run a Tinnitus and Hyperacusis clinic. He seems to be working on a new technique based on virtual reality... It is further North for you but might possibly be an another interesting lead.

Alain Londero on Virtual Reality for Tinnitus...

 

Shit, Shim did NT-3 too? I may have to go this route.

 

So this approach should allegedly restore hearing?

 

Dr. Shim will not offer this to you. Why would you assume he is the only ENT I have dealt with?

The point I am trying to make is that we are sitting around while tinnitus organizations waste money on nonsensical non curative research when there are things available right now, sitting on shelves, sitting in refrigerators, that could help many of us in our desperately tragic situations to reduce our torture but we are at the mercy of corporations and huge regulatory hurdles that will ensure that it will be years and years before we are allowed to have these therapies.

This community could do well to organize.

 

American ENTs offering this service would be news to me. If you could share with me any details I’d be grateful. Not holding up well as of late.

 

I unfortunately cannot offer any instructions on how to obtain this treatment. As a community we need to be organized to the point where we could have an avenue to work with our doctors to have such an intervention. Whether or not efficacy data exists in human trials, which it doesn't, there is evidence that it is safe and we should have the right to pay an ENT to mix this with a hydrogel and administer it to us.

 

Damn straight!

 

@Rogi Cetpla : Of course, I systematically relay information.

About Montpellier:
http://www.inmfrance.com/inmfrance-j3/index.php/en/hearing
The Director of the Department is Jean-Luc Puel. But this is an Institute (University), that means they do basic research and not applied research: at the end of a certain stage, they transfer the product of their research to a pharmaceutical laboratory. If I remember correctly, INM worked on Gacyclidine and transfered their results to Auris Medical and/or Otonomy. This is not a tinnitus clinic with consultations for patients.

About Londero:
you can see the thread I posted:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...-londero-neurofeedback-virtual-reality.36929/
But I am living to far from the clinical trial centers (Paris and Toulouse).

 

Yes, Sensorion was a start-up here too.

I don't know how it works on clinicaltrials.gov but the study isn't up to date and is completed. They didn't publish the results as of yet but Zeta Technologies did a presentation about it in September.

I think I will post more about it in your thread and not digress more here.

 

Article from a few days ago.

https://www.bizjournals.com/portlan...udy-provides-clues-to-combatting-hearing.html

 

Interesting article... but:

“Hearing Restoration Project, a privately funded consortium of 15 scientists from around the world who are seeking to develop strategies for hair-cell regeneration to restore hearing loss.”

15 scientists? I wish we could link this to climate change, there would be thousands.

 

... and they would all be totally ignored.

 

That’s because the world ends in 12 years...just when Dr. Shore finishes her study .....kidding

 

We can't?

 

I'm not sure Shore herself has 12 years left. She's no spring chicken.

 

That seems unnecessarily callous, especially towards a person who is working to free you from a lifetime curse.

How about a nice email to her instead, thanking her and her team for the work that they do? I did that a long time ago, and she personally responded, which felt really good for some reason.

 

A little levity is never harmful especially as I sit here listening to my tinnitus. Some have said she and / or her staff have tinnitus, can anyone confirm?

After every email I sent her staff and Dr. Shore (never heard back from Dr. Shore) I mentioned how they are saving lives. I was denied from the trial for being 50 miles too far.

 

I just think anyone over the age of 50 should approach their work with more of a sense of urgency, that's all. History is littered with those who put many years working slowly on some mega-project and wound up leaving an incomplete legacy.

"Carpe diem. Seize the day." - Dead...

 

Acknowledging that all life eventually has an endpoint is not cruel it is simply self-aware. No one is immortal. Understanding that fact is part of being human.

 

You don't know that.

 

https://glive.co.uk/Online/tickets-royal-surrey-nhs-guildford-2020

Just came across this! A seminar on tinnitus and hearing loss is being held on Feb 3 by the NHS in Surrey, UK. Anyone is welcome to attend and tickets are free of charge. Five experts on tinnitus and hyperacusis will be speaking including Prof Richard J. Salvi from Buffalo (pretty sure his name rings a bell!)

 

Another recent article in the mainstream media (Jan 21) bringing awareness to hidden hearing loss. It's great to see this topic gaining more awareness and will hopefully spur the search for solutions.

https://www.popsci.com/story/health/early-hearing-loss/

This part gives me such hope lmao:

"That’s why Kujawa, Liberman, and international groups are racing to understand the condition. Their research is leading the biotechnology industry toward treatments that could reverse the damage by coaxing synapses to regrow and give people back their normal, clamorous lives."

 

Recent article about Rinri Therapeutics (headed by Marcelo Rivolta). It's quite basic but an encouraging excerpt nonetheless? https://www.thestar.co.uk/business/sheffield-start-pioneering-treatment-help-deaf-hear-1365721

"...we are doing well in meeting our initial milestones, transitioning the technology away from the lab, getting it to clinical quality and towards first human trials.”

 

New research from Jeff T. Corwin at the University of Virginia appears to have uncovered the reason for the permanent nature of hair cell loss in humans. The findings identify why certain creatures can recover from hearing damage and why humans cannot.
The team behind the research, part of Corwin’s Laboratory of Inner Ear Sensory Hair Cell Regeneration, has discovered a pharmacological treatment that could “wake up” the special supporting cells that can allow lost hair cells to regenerate in humans.

— which was published on February 20, 2020 in the Journal of Neuroscience

https://www.jneurosci.org/content/early/2020/02/18/JNEUROSCI.2630-19.2020.long

 

Some evidence from cochlear implants for the mechanism of hearing regeneration, though it might have already been discussed:

Studies on cochlear implants and tinnitus improvement:
1. "A Unilateral Cochlear Implant for Tinnitus" (http://www.tinnitusjournal.com/articles/a-unilateral-cochlear-implant-for-tinnitus-10831.html): This study reports findings from several other studies regarding unilateral tinnitus. Estimated from all studies, about 25% of patients reported complete reduction, most others improvement. No worsening was observed.
2. "The Cochlear Implant as a Tinnitus Treatment": 20 patients fitted with unilateral cochlear implant. When activated, 65% of patients reported improvement/disappearance in the ear with the device and 50% of patients in the other ear. The numbers dropped to 50% and 45% respectively when the device was turned off. In 10% of patients (two people), tinnitus appeared in the ear with the device.
3. "A Prospective Study of the Effect of Cochlear Implantation on Tinnitus": 44 patients, most with bilateral tinnitus. Complete reduction was observed in 8 patients, while 14 reported improvement. It is noted that these 8 patients had tinnitus for a much shorter time on average (about 5 years) than the rest of patients (32 years on average). It is speculated that not necessarily the "imprinting" of tinnitus in the brain is responsible for this, but the years of hearing loss.
4. "Tinnitus before and 6 Months after Cochlear Implantation": 174 patients, 125 of them with tinnitus. Six months after implantation, 20% reported abolition, 51% reduction, 22% no change and 7% a deterioration. 5 of the 49 patients without tinnitus developed T.
5. "Tinnitus and cochlear implants": 36 patients, 36% reported suppression, 42% a reduction.

I guess hearing regeneration should be more efficient since it restores the natural state, while a cochlear implant is always going to be some sort of alteration and not a restoration of natural input.

 

On top of that, CIs do not cover the full hearing range. If they did, I think they would be even more effective. They are working on light-based (vs electrical based) CIs now which should have better frequency coverage.