Hearing Health Blog
I currently work with a mouse model with hearing fluctuation and have a clinical protocol that is performing deep phenotyping of patients with hearing instability, including patients with Ménière’s disease.
The road to more effective, less invasive, and faster developing treatments for tinnitus and loudness hyperacusis lies in focusing on the brain and not the ear.
This suggests that birds maintain a precise program for hair cell regeneration that preserves frequency-specific nerve connections, which is an important aspect of proper functional recovery.
Of relevance to hyperacusis, prior noise-induced hearing loss leads to the generation of prolonged and repetitive activity in type II neurons and surrounding tissues. This aberrant signaling may be the basis for the sensitivity to everyday sounds seen in hyperacusis.
These findings suggest that the auditory cortex may transmit significant non-auditory signals relevant for learning-related plasticity.
As a result, increased prefrontal activity may be helpful in improving gating function (automatic filtering), a topic for future research.
Our independent analysis of the clinical trials’ published data yields the following insights on gene therapy for hearing loss from otoferlin variants. The clinical trials provide the first validation of pharmacological treatments for hearing loss.
These details gleaned from this regenerative process in the mouse organoid provides insights into how mammalian supporting cells could be reprogrammed into hair cells.
At the 2024 Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO) MidWinter Meeting, held in early February in Anaheim, California, our partner Hyperacusis Research hosted a dinner where several researchers presented their latest findings.
Activity by special neurons called unipolar brush cells reveals that they may introduce delays or increase the length of firing responses, and presumably extend vestibular sensory representations.
