Inner Ear Hair Cell Regeneration — Maybe We Can Know More

Again, do what I said. Put on earmuffs for 10-15 minutes and you'll notice how much louder your tinnitus becomes. Then take them off and you'll notice how much quieter it is with the other sound that's now allowed back in. Because it's directly correlated with hearing.

Read these comments:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/oticon-more™-hearing-aids-silenced-my-friends-tinnitus.46140/

 

For what it’s worth, I’ve had variable hearing loss that has been helped with steroids. I’ve had tinnitus that has accompanied it and then resolved even after a year. And I had tinnitus six years ago from a loud concert that resolved after about two years.

So I’m not really sure what to make of that, but I do think that there are instances where restoration of hearing and healing can reverse the tinnitus.

I think in reality, they are just beginning to learn about this condition and the profound complexities involved.

 

Mogrify and Astellas announce collaboration to conduct research on in vivo regenerative medicine approaches to address sensorineural hearing loss

Cambridge, UK, Tokyo, Japan, 05 July 2022: Mogrify Limited (CEO: Darrin M. Disley, Ph.D., “Mogrify®”), a biopharmaceutical company transforming the lives of patients through a novel class of in vivo reprogramming therapies, and Astellas Pharma Inc. (TSE: 4503, President and CEO: Kenji Yasukawa, Ph.D., “Astellas”), a leader in regenerative medicine, today announced that they have executed a collaborative research agreement on in vivo regenerative medicine approaches to address sensorineural hearing loss.

 

This was indeed too optimistic it turns out

 

Did they ever answer? I am also going to contact them.

 

When I read "magical thinking" articles all I can think of is this. (the first prediction is sadly topical)... The second, actually came to pass.

 

I guess before hearing regeneration drugs come out, Prof. Thanos will have his RL-81 on the market.

 

And they could have predicted COVID-19? The plandemic has derailed everything by at least 18 months.

 

That was a delay for sure. The closest thing is probably FX-322 and that's still a good few years away, if it even works. Then OTO-413 is another 4 or 5 years-ish away still too. Everything else is 10 years or more off still.

 

That dose of reality killed my Monday morning

 

There are lots of things that can help people significantly. Lots of people find huge benefit in some supplements, exercises, medicine or lots of other things.

Dr. Susan Shore's device will be out sooner.

Regenerative type things are a while away though for sure. If they do work, it could be instant relief from that point on though.

 

I don't want you to think I was criticizing you. I wasn't. Just sad.

 

Yeah, I was just trying to make you feel better. I get sad thinking about how far away a cure might be too but I feel better when I try to distract myself. And probably spending less time on this forum would be better for all our mental health.

 

An interesting piece in ENT & Audiology newsletter about harnessing cochlear implants to deliver and test hearing regeneration treatments:

Cochlear implants and therapeutics: a natural partnership?

I did pick up Frequency Therapeutics mention using this method to check perilymph levels of their drug. You can hear it discussed in the Tinnitus Talk Podcast: → Hearing Lost and Found — Frequency Therapeutics

 

That's actually a huge number of drugs being trialed.

 

It is, but tinnitus is a small piece of the pie (which is outdated - 2 failures still showing.)

 

This. Also, a great majority of the pharmaceuticals listed are in the pre-clinical stage, which means they’re extremely far away.

Not trying to be negative but just highlighting reality of the situation.

 

And the vast majority of them will fail. Most won't probably even make it to clinical trials. Just need one to get through though.

 

It cheers me up no end to get a view on what research is doing and how it's progressing.

In my humble opinion, it would be a major step forward if the scientists could deliver some way of viewing the state of the cochlea in situ (in a living person). So that you could keep tabs on how your hair cells and synapses are doing. It would be then easy to keep score like if you caught a dose of COVID-19 or had to take some medication, you could take a before/after count of the hair cells and synapses. Likewise with noise damage.

After Dr. Susan Shore's lectures, one would have to do something similar for the fuzzy-form cells at the other end. My fuzzy logic -- fusiform cells is the right name.

 

TBH, there's a large part of me that would hate this. I don't want to know how many hair cells I have left in that direct way. If there's no way of doing anything about it, it would just make me crazy.

 

I'd have to know though. I couldn't help myself, like a junkie. I'd even pay thousands just to see the damage to the stereocilia to further increase my suffering.

 

That's what I want most. We aren't curing shit if we can't see what is going on. This is especially important, because if there is no hair cell damage, then you know ear treatments won't work for you. And it will also help us better understand the problem and ultimately solve it. I wonder how far we are from that kind of technology, and why. We have the tech to image hair cells in the lab, just not in vivo. I believe that kind of imaging exam breakthrough is by far the most important progress we need right now, and it should have priority over any drug trial. But humans are obsessed with drug trials. It is as if we were trying to fix a virus in your computer by throwing random stuff inside it and hoping something works out. We are so clueless...

 

Especially nowadays where the Bio-Pharma firms are "tailoring" the patients that are admitted to the trials so as to up the success rate:

1) In some trials they only want early onset (acute) cases. But a significant percent of acute cases clear up anyway or habituation is achieved even without the medicaments, so that's going to present too much of a rosy picture in the results of a trial.

2) In some trials they only want somatic cases. Well Godspeed, Susan -- even though I don't belong to the group.

3) In some trials they only want noise-related hearing patients (is this what they mean by sensorineural hearing loss?).

I would make the bold postulate that the hearing system is a complicated business with many components.

Once any one of these components is damaged it can cause tinnitus, hearing loss, hyperacusis. It could be damage to the inner or the outer hair cells, it could be the synapses and it could be the stereocilia.

What are my qualifications? Diddly Squat. But the experts don't seem to know either.

If they can image the works "in the lab" then we need to somehow "miniaturize" the tech... with whatever, keyhole surgery etc... so as to view it in situ -- in a living person. That's the direction or one direction.

 

Maybe this will bring more funding and awareness into Dr. C. Liberman's research to restore hearing loss!

Scientific Grand Prize awarded to renowned hearing loss researcher

 

Congratulations to him! I know I've watched his December, 2017 presentation at the PSHS more than once! He loves the idea of Neurotrophin-3 (member of the Neurotrophin family of growth factors, same family as BDNF in OTO-413) using it to restore synapses to hearing cells.

Here's a link to it. It was posted a while back. Around 45 minutes is key regarding Neurotrophin-3. 36 minutes is why I hate seeing younger people walking around with AirPods blasting music in their ears and why I think ENTs should always test extended audiograms, and THEN show these results to the kids so they see the damage they are doing! 9 minutes shows why speech in noise is important (down-sampling of audio input with fewer nerve connections). And of course, 22 minutes showing why cochlear synaptopathy is more common than stereocilia damage.

(Not to mention his voice is soothing ASMR to me.)

Hidden Hearing Loss: M. Charles Liberman PhD

I do wish when these scientists do their testing with the mice, they'd includes more tests for damaging the hearing: not just 98 dB for 2 hours which seems common practice, but maybe 80 dB for a day, or impulse noise for a brief moment, and report the results of those studies too.

 

First direct access to the human auditory nerve could offer new hope

Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre - today.

 

This sounds like it could be big! I hope drugs like FX-322 will be able to benefit from this improved delivery method.

 

@CRGC, as someone in the UK, I can confirm Nottingham University and BRC is the epicentre of tinnitus and hearing loss research. Basically a research centre bolted on to one of the best universities in the country. No biotech/stock market bollocks (stock markets are not a big part of UK society outside of London) or non-profit (disguised for profit) entities like Hough Ear Institute.

These are basically government funded entities, although you can donate and contribute I'm sure. I would certainly have them on any list of 'worthy causes'.

It's also where Professor David Baguley taught and researched.

 

That's all great and good but you still get told the same thing.

On my onset of tinnitus worsening and after reading his books, I desperately contacted Dr. Baguley who kindly responded and recommended I try to get an appointment at Nottingham.

After waiting 18 months and going to my appointment eagerly, which was in the same building as he worked, I was then told that no one knows anything about pain hyperacusis, that there was nothing they could do for it or my tinnitus and, after an 18 month wait for the appointment, it lasted 5 minutes. I then got a letter saying I was discharged.

Research is great and needed but these breakthroughs and findings need to develop into meaningful treatments, otherwise what's the point.

 

I agree. I'm not an expert, but I think that many cases of tinnitus and hyperacusis could benefit from treatments to regenerate hearing, however. My problems, for example, coincide with the onset of my hearing loss. If the normal functioning of my cochlear hair cells and auditory nerve could be restored, I believe there would be good chances for me to be cured or at least to experience some relief.

@CW Dragon, thanks a lot for the video link to Charles Liberman's presentation. Super informative and interesting.