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Web edition: January 9, 2013
Print edition: February 9, 2013; Vol.183 #3 (p. 8)
A new drug may be able to combat noise-induced hearing loss. Loud noises can damage sensitive inner ear cells called hair cells (mouse hair cells shown), which in mammals don’t grow back. That’s why rock musicians, factory workers, carpenters and other people who are surrounded by loud sounds often suffer hearing loss. A study in mice may point out a way to reverse the effects of this acoustical trauma. The compound LY411575, a type of molecule called a gamma-secretase inhibitor, got these hair cells growing again. After receiving an injection of the drug in the ear, mice with cochleas damaged by loud white noise sprouted new hair cells. What’s more, these newborn cells partially restored the animals’ hearing, researchers led by Albert Edge of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston report in the Jan. 9 Neuron. A similar drug may one day reverse hearing loss in people.
Citations
K. Mizutari et al. Notch inhibition induces cochlear hair cell regeneration and recovery of hearing after acoustic trauma. Neuron. Vol. 77, January 9, 2013. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.10.032. Available online: [Go to]
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Anyway, who knows? With the right coiffure, maybe our scalps could also hear sounds, from directly above. Then we could listen to all those tiny men who live in the ceiling.
""Attenuation of cochlear damage from noise trauma by an iron chelator""
Coincidentally , siderosis also causes hearing loss.
"Superficial siderosis: A potentially important cause of genetic as well as non-genetic deafness"
One might wonder whether the injection in the ear is the same method being used to treat aminoglycoside induced hearing loss ?
"The attenuation of gentamicin-induced hearing loss by iron chelators"
Iron chelators ?
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