New Stem Cell Transplantation Method Restores Damaged Auditory Pathways

This is the most reachable and the next step, technologically, to medical advancement. Only in the field we are interested in, they could penetrate, investigate, and finally correct any problems in the inner ear without a drop of blood! Fascinating...

 

Hospitals will charge you for this procedure.

 

Hospitals will charge for the procedure, but they're not putting the money into the research to provide the procedure. The research needs to get done.

 

Not sure if I want to get my hopes up about this 'exciting new discovery'. Science is cool and yes this is really cool and potentially helpful. Emphasis on potentially.

 

Yes and also in many countries it will probably be covered by either the health care plan or insurances.

 

How do they "turn on" genes and where do I sign up?

 

@Penate Here is a more recent observation of auditory nerve repair with stem cells. It would be very exciting if this could be used as a treatment.

I hope people aren't forgetting that there are two different parts of the inner that can be damage. Hair Cells or Nerve Fibers. This research, I strongly believe, is more towards auditory nerve regeneration.
http://atlasofscience.org/transplanted-cells-reveal-potential-for-functional-neural-regeneration-2/

 

Is there already a way of determining with certainty which part (or both) of the cochlea is damaged?

 

@Reinier Two tests that are good with doing that are a DPOAE for hair cell damage and an ABR for nerve damage.

The audiogram test can show which frequencies have been damaged with the hair cells. The ABR is the only test that can give some kind of information for any damage that's happened between the brain and the ears.

 

Yeah, you know your acronyms!

 

I'm not sure if that's supposed to be sarcasm or not?

 

Would be nice to know what you are talking about. ABR do not make me any wiser.

 

Haha I'm really sorry about that biff. With how my Tinnitus and hearing issue is going now I don't really think about or review what I type, I just put down what comes from my mind. My cognitive thinking has been going down the drain lately ever since my original hearing started getting worse 4 months ago.

An ABR is an Auditory Brain Response test that will give the person performing the test a graphical representation of how the response/processing of sound is from your ears to your brain. I had this test done on me not to long ago and although it came out showing my hearing was fine I had to disagree with it. I've read articles online saying that it's not always correct especially with babies.

A DPOAE is an Otoacoustic Emissions test that is conducted by having headphones gives off some light sounds to the inner ear and if your hair cells are normal, the headphones, I believe equipped with a microphone, should be able to pick up the response back from the hair cells since they have been known to do so.

 

Thanks!! Ill be sure to ask the T specialist about that when I see him on newyear!

 

When i had my cochlear implant done in 1989 i know they did a test to see if the hearing nerve is functioning. Hair cell damage and nerve damage...they say benefits of CI's are related to how many hair cells are still functioing. I hope they do something in the very near futiure to restore hearing and eliminate tinnitus.

 

Hmmm, I've always read that Cochlear Implants are designed to bypass damaged/missing hair cells in the cochlea so that it can electrically stimulate the auditory nerve? That's why lately researchers have been focusing in one using gene therapy with electrical stimulation of the Cochlear Implant to grow the auditory nerves farther out so a better signal is created between the CI and the nerves.

They said the treatment could take only 5 minutes to do with those who have CI's and it should help out a lot with pitch understanding and what not since they seem to be poor with listening to music. How is it when you listen to music with your Cochlear Implant?

http://www.medgadget.com/2014/04/el...uditory-nerves-improve-cochlear-implants.html

Check out this project!

http://nanoci.org/index.php

 

It sounds very promising. Hope something like that can be done soon. As far as listening to music with my CI, I like music from the 1970-80's and the songs i liked back then i listen to in my vehicle and at home now and I can follow along and i do hear each word pretty good. Billy Joel is a fave!

 

This is amazing technique.
I wonder hoe accurate this is. Especially because haircells have a band of sound they "serve". And than there is the difference between inner and outer haircells. Inner pick up the sound and outer give the response via our brain which is picked up by the microphone. This is way above my level of understanding at the moment.

 

I got a DPOAE test from my audiologist and it was... unimpressive. Sure enough, it indicated some loss of hair cell responsiveness in the higher frequencies where my T is, but it was wildly imprecise. Some of the readings indicated "negative" feedback (i.e. worse than zero responsiveness), despite such a result being physically impossible. My audiologist assured me that it's not yet a very reliable test, but maybe it will get more accurate soon.

 

Thanks.
Interesting.
I would have been surprised if the technique is very accurate. So much effort is spend on trying to asses what actually is damaged in the cochlea.
If this principle would have been accurate it could make more invasive/expensive techniques obsolete. Perhaps at the moment there is no accurate way to determine what parts are damaged in the cochlea without opening it. But I still feel it is a fascinating concept. Perhaps it can be improved in future.

 

It works like listening to a white noise generator. Listen to one for an hr or so and my T goes down for a while. I love that little machine, I use it on a spike.

 

It is encouraging news but I admit I fear side effects, thinking about million of people already killed by drug's side effects in the world, are there good reasons to keep calm when it's about stem cells and gene therapy ?

 

This is why I read what I can on the internet regarding these techniques. I will not do desperate stuff (although some argue that neuromodulator therapy is just that. But that is a different discussion and I hope I can disagree with that in a few months time).
I can never know enough to make a rational decision, because biology is not part of my education. I rely on people on this forum that know a lot more about biology. And I hope I have enough common sense when I can make a decision in future.

But surely, it is not millions of people have been killed by gene and stem cell therapy?
That would be daunting.

 

Btw, the disease and overall H/ear pain are killing me all day long, so why don't give a try to different alternative medicine ?

 

I'd allow them to pump an unlimited amount of stem cells into me,if I turned into one big walking tumour I can honestly say not one fuck would be given.At least I tried

 

Unlimited is a lot!
But, yes sometimes I feel the same.

 

Can never have enough Stemcells lol
Stemcell cookie anyone?

 

Its funny that we experiment on rats when there are plenty of people out there that would gladly sign up for a stem cell cookie. Bring it on. I'm hungry too.

 

There have been numerous people that have tried.
You probably also read posts from@attheedgeofscience
The problem is that there are so many unqualified people out there that are only interested in our money.

 

Here is an example why I fear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Gelsinger

And I fear as well because I know too many people harmed / or killed by drugs, including myself who almost died from a major seizure several years ago because of an antidepressant. All those pharma slaughters are usually denied by physicians and drug industries. Wether it be heart drugs, aspirin or many other drugs.

Hopefully future stem cells and gene therapies won't be sold blindly with hidden side effects. We are in the realm of information but twisted pharma swindlers still exist.

Imagine, a tinnitus deaf dude looking for gene or stem cells therapy to restore his ears after chemotherapy side effects. Having another cancer would be terrible.