Hair cells in the cochlea are the only cells in our body specialized to encode the energy in sound waves. As a result, we lose our hearing when hair cells die, which occurs during aging and after exposure to excessive noise or ototoxic drugs. Research indicates that no adult mammals replace their auditory hair cells once they are lost.
Hearing Health Partners With GLM Communications
Hearing Health Foundation is pleased to announce it is partnering with GLM Communications on advertising sales for its quarterly magazine, Hearing Health. “We are thrilled to again partner with GLM,” HHF CEO Timothy Higdon says. “They bring deep knowledge of relevant industries and prior experience to the table.”
First-Generation College Students and More Highlights From Meet the Researcher
Each year Hearing Health Foundation’s (HHF) Emerging Research Grants (ERG) program funds innovative hearing and balance projects from promising early-career scientists. A program created by Collette Ramsey Baker, in 1958 when HHF was founded, ERG continues to be a cornerstone of our mission. We eagerly look forward to applications from potential grantees, due this year on Feb. 10, 2020, and publicizing their projects and careers.
Working With Tinnitus
Work is an important part of one’s social environment and often provides a sense of achievement and self-worth. However, the data we’ve collected at Tinnitus Hub shows that more than a third—38 percent—of people who say they have tinnitus say that the condition has negatively affected their work prospects.
Broomfield, CO Girl Inspires Hearing Aid Legislation
Each device costs between $5,000 and $8,000, Ally’s mother Melissa Tumblin said, and they have to be replaced every five years. When her insurance company denied coverage of her hearing device, Tumblin formed Ear Community to help advocate for coverage of these devices to make sure no one is left unable to hear because of private insurance companies’ refusal to grant coverage.
Changes in the Tiny Vessels of the Inner Ear’s Balance Organ Reveal Links to Ménière’s Disease
By Gail Ishiyama, M.D.
The integrity and permeability of the blood labyrinthine barrier (BLB) in the inner ear is important to maintain an adequate blood supply and to control the passage of fluids, molecules, and ions. Identifying the cellular and structural components of the BLB is critical to understanding inner ear microvasculature (micro vessels) and designing the efficient delivery of therapeutics across the BLB, potentially to treat hearing and balance disorders such as Ménière’s disease.
(A) Uniformly thick vessels (red) in a vestibular schwannoma utricle with arrows pointing to a wrapping pericyte cell. (B) In a thick vessel from a Ménière’s patient, there is disorganization of the pericyte processes (white arrows) and evidence of degeneration of the vascular endothelial cells and thin areas of the vessel wall (green). (C) This zoomed-out image shows constriction in the blood vessels (left arrow).
My team and I used fluorescence microscopy to study the microvasculature in the utricular macula, which detects the body’s linear movement, of patients who had undergone surgery for Ménière’s disease or vestibular schwannoma. As published in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience on Oct. 4, 2019, we found a significantly decreased number of junctions, total vessel length, and average vessel length in the microvasculature in Ménière’s disease specimens compared with vestibular schwannoma and control specimens.
The vessels in Ménière’s specimens appeared disorganized with abnormal, uneven, or constricted shapes, atypical branching, and decreased coverage and thinning, leaving vascular endothelial cells (VECs) exposed and unprotected. Our prior research had shown that in Ménière’s disease, VECs are damaged and that they contain oxidative stress markers. Our new study underscores possible mechanisms behind BLB disruption in Ménière’s and the subsequent signs of edema (excess fluid), which disrupts the homeostasis of the hearing and balance structures.
The report indicates that interventions aimed at preventing damage to the microvasculature may help stop the progression of damage to the vestibular system, restoring balance and preventing vertigo spells. It could be that decreasing vessel constriction and BLB leakage will help prevent chronic damage to balance structures; this may help explain how steroids administered to Ménière’s patients provide temporary relief from dizziness symptoms.
The paper also shows that human inner ear tissue can be used to compare and contrast findings in animal models to design better therapies for vestibular and auditory disorders. We hope that the deeper understanding of the anatomy of the BLB and its changes during disease will enable the development of noninvasive delivery strategies for treating hearing and balance disorders.
Gail Ishiyama, M.D., a 2016 and 2018 Emerging Research Grants recipient, is a clinician-scientist who is a neurology associate professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine.
You can make a donation to support the top-tier scientists funded by Hearing Health Foundation (HHF). With stellar charity ratings from all watchdogs, HHF pledges to use your gift wisely.
5 Ways to Lower Your Risk for Tinnitus
Tinnitus is the perception of ringing or buzzing in the ears, without an external sound source. As an audiologist, I have been treating it for nearly three decades. Here are five easy ways you can keep your ears as healthy as possible against tinnitus.
Filling in the Gaps
The annual meeting of Hearing Health Foundation’s (HHF) Hearing Restoration Project (HRP) was held in Seattle Dec. 12–14, 2019. As always, we use this extended in-person meeting to discuss in detail the progress of the consortium over the past year and to develop our plan for the upcoming year.
More Than Winning
With the help of my employer, OneLife Fitness, I scheduled the challenge for my 55th birthday at the gym. I chose to pair the event with a fundraiser for HHF on Facebook, where I was able to not only raise funds, but bring more awareness into the community about the good work of HHF.
Looking to Other Sensory Organs to Better Understand Hair Cell Regeneration
In a Sept. 25, 2019, article published in the Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology, Hearing Restoration Project (HRP) consortium member Tatjana Piotrowski, Ph.D., and colleagues at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Missouri summarize the existing literature on hair cell regeneration in the context of sensory cell regeneration more broadly.