Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss Now Lists Tinnitus

https://hearinglosscure.stanford.edu/

Not sure if anyone has noticed, but they added tinnitus to their mission statement. Every year I contribute to the cause. Money well spent, but the fact that they now list tinnitus and not just hearing loss is a great step forward for everyone on these forums.

 

Hi @RB2014 do you donate to Stanford or to some other organization, if you don't mind the question?

 

Have they had any success by now or human trials?

 

I too donate to Harvard and others. I agree that it could be money well spend. And it makes me feel good.

I never noticed tinnitus was not on their mission statement.

It makes sense that if scientists are able to regenerate/repair parts in the cochlea a lot of tinnitus and hyperacusis will be cured at the same time.

 

Last year I made my first donation to them and plan to continue from here on out. I really never cared much about hearing loss until after I got tinnitus and I began reading about all of the work they are doing on tinnitus and hearing loss and realized that they are truly dedicated to finding a cure to both. It gives me hope that they will someday find something to help us. I'm pretty sure adding tinnitus to their Mission statement is something new unless I missed it before.

The contributions I made to them also made me feel better, but more importantly provide me with hope that one day I will be able to enjoy the silence I had before.

From what I understand, they are doing the research and sharing it with anyone and everyone that will listen. They haven't done any human trials and I'm not sure if they plan to.

 

Re: Graphic from Stanford Researchers Lab to Cure Hearing Loss

 

Gee, if only we had such a treatment that works as on this pretty illustration, I'd be crying of joy.

 

It could happen sooner than you think.

 

Hi Adas,

Check out the Stanford Initiative. It's pretty bold! They named the initiative The Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss, not to study, not to research, but to cure! I think their boldness says a lot. The race is on from several different consortiums to find a cure, which is encouraging. When you have competitiveness in academia with top researchers in their field, we see innovation.

 

More fancy pictures here:

https://hearinglosscure.stanford.edu/research-team/

 

Interesting discussion overall including pieces on drug delivery directly to the cochlea and tinnitus mechanisms:

The Stanford Initiative to Cure Hearing Loss...

 

TL;DR?

 

There's a lot of "here's how we do our research" type discussion, but I tried to skim out the stuff relevant to developing treatments.

• Stanford created a broad multi-disciplinary group of 90+ scientists dedicated to making the treatment of the inner ear as accessible as the middle ear.

• Contrary to old medical belief, the human inner ear does have some (limited) natural hair cell regeneration capabilities. A potential treatment would be able to amplify this regeneration process via gene therapy. A specific gene in rodents has been identified that is responsible for their hair cell regeneration.

• Currently, studies on cells in the inner ear are done almost exclusively in cells that have been removed from the cochlea. New imaging technology will allow scientists to study these cells in-vivo.

• The problem of delivering drugs to the cochlea past a wall of bone is making progress, scientists are now able to use microsurgery to dissolve small sections of the inner ear bones in rodents to create a window to the cochlea, with no adverse effects on the hearing of the rodent.

• Deep Brain Stimulation therapy has gotten much more specific and is a promising way to suppress tinnitus that the team is studying in addition to hair cell regeneration.

• One scientist accidentally mutes himself in the Zoom call. Everyone bravely resists the urge to crack an ironic joke about it.

 

MVP.

 

I am glad they also focus on Deep Brain Stimulation. In my opinion it's the only way to a cure. There are too many non-hair cell related reasons for hearing loss.

 

When speaking to an ex-researcher a couple of months back, she said exactly this. She hasn’t been researching the inner ear for many years but said it was “known” even back then that hair cells do regenerate, albeit very slowly. The issue, she believes, is that the constant damage by way of additional noise exposure, ototoxicity and ischemia due to natural aging is typically greater than the amount of regeneration. It’s likely the reason why more young people are able to recover from hearing loss or tinnitus than an older age group. She also mentioned that it’s unclear how much of it is hair cell or nerve damage with the latter being more likely and more easily reversible. Nerves do heal as well especially if given the appropriate environment to do so.

Sometimes regrowing hair cells is compared to regenerating limbs but it’s not a very good comparison. As one of the members here posted, there are multiple biological systems in a limb; bone, skin, muscle, nerves, veins, etc. (roughly worded). Ironically, children have been known to be able to regenerate the tips of the fingers while adults cannot. This in itself offers proof that humans are able to regenerate body parts and systems to some degree, we just have to figure out how to turbo charge it.

Forget about all the controversy surrounding people like Liam Boehm, the fact is fasting and diets can promote autophagy. So can certain vitamins, medications and stem cells, which in my opinion, lies the greatest hope of a treatment. People like @attheedgeofscience have recovered/improved using stem cells and for those that have the resources to do so, stem cells should be the first option. The good news is Standford is renowned for their stem cell research, the bad news is we are quite some time away before anything is commercially available.

 

That's all very cool and promising stuff! Seems like every week, we are receiving more and more news that how the science world is starting to bring hearing issues out of the medical stone age!

The changes and advancements made in the last few years are insane. There was basically no movement for 200 years and now suddenly the ear is starting to receive 21st century attention.

 

I agree! It seems like Deep Brain Stimulation works, yet there aren't a lot of opportunities to get it. It's sad to think of people on the verge of suicide from debilitating tinnitus, when there are actual treatments out there. But I don't know, maybe I'm overestimating Deep Brain Stimulation.

 

The OP in the thread is more than 5 years old. Could anyone summarize the concrete progress the Stanford group has made in that time?

 

There's a TL;DR 5 messages above from yours.

 

Well, sort of. Here is what I mean:

• Stanford created a broad multi-disciplinary group of 90+ scientists dedicated to making the treatment of the inner ear as accessible as the middle ear.

This is a positive development organizationally, but it is not actual scientific progress.

• Contrary to old medical belief, the human inner ear does have some (limited) natural hair cell regeneration capabilities. A potential treatment would be able to amplify this regeneration process via gene therapy. A specific gene in rodents has been identified that is responsible for their hair cell regeneration.

Was the gene in rodents identified at Stanford, or by this group? Or was the discovery made elsewhere?

• Currently, studies on cells in the inner ear are done almost exclusively in cells that have been removed from the cochlea. New imaging technology will allow scientists to study these cells in-vivo.

This describes something that "will happen," so it does not represent actual progress thus far.

• The problem of delivering drugs to the cochlea past a wall of bone is making progress, scientists are now able to use microsurgery to dissolve small sections of the inner ear bones in rodents to create a window to the cochlea, with no adverse effects on the hearing of the rodent.

Was this progress made at Stanford, or by this group? Or was the progress made elsewhere?

• Deep Brain Stimulation therapy has gotten much more specific and is a promising way to suppress tinnitus that the team is studying in addition to hair cell regeneration.

I'm glad the team is studying this. Have they found anything yet?

From what is said here, it certainly sounds like there is the potential for Stanford to make progress in the future. But I am curious to hear what progress Stanford has made thus far, beyond forming the group and making plans, given that this thread is 5 years old.

 

Sorry but at the moment I don't think any of your questions can be answered. There probably is an answer but Stanford won't comment until they have something solid.

 

I think the progress was that they learned some new things that gives them a good foundation to go further.

 

A lot of progress involves expanding and building up the knowledge base. So I'm pretty laid back about all these weird studies on hair cells of zebra fish and such-like. The breakthroughs do happen but they are sadly few and far between. Very often a breakthrough happens when some conventional wisdom is somehow challenged — maybe an example would be that hidden hearing study by Liberman — and it clears the obstacles out of the way... until the next obstacle comes into view.

I'm now suffering a big spike after getting my COVID-19 Pfizer jab... and one more to go. If I am a typical case then maybe our ranks will be swelled in the coming months and years. It could be that COVID-19 turns out to be what spurs the researchers on and they put funding into tinnitus research.

 

Interesting indeed. Apparently they can now take a look at human cochleas and hair cells in people undergoing brain tumor surgery (37:10).

 

I think that these guys are actually on a promising pathway with what they are doing when it comes to the research and techniques side of things.