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Stem Cells Turn Hearing Back On
puddingebola sends this excerpt from an article at ScienceNow:
"Scientists have enabled deaf gerbils to hear again — with the help of transplanted cells that develop into nerves that can transmit auditory information from the ears to the brain. The advance, reported today in Nature, could be the basis for a therapy to treat various kinds of hearing loss. ... Rivolta and his colleagues knew that during embryonic development, a handful of proteins, including fibroblast growth factor (FGF) 3 and 10, are required for ears to form. So they exposed human embryonic stem cells to FGF3 and FGF10. Multiple types of cells formed, including precursor inner-ear hair cells, but they were also able to identify and isolate the cells beginning to differentiate into the desired spiral ganglion neurons. Then, they implanted the neuron precursor cells into the ears of gerbils with damaged ear neurons and followed the animals for 10 weeks. The function of the neurons was restored.'"
is there anything they can't do?
I know, probably not that funny, but it was to me.
Congress will turn a deaf-ear to the pleas of those waiting for stem-cell research.
Maybe they can do something about this damn tinnitus....
Has it been tested on leppards?
Many in the deaf community are against technologies that restore hearing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaf_culture#Values_and_beliefs
A positive attitude toward being deaf is typical in Deaf cultural groups. Deafness is not generally considered a condition that needs to be fixed.
hear me now?
32 weeks of studying 'Sign Language for Gerbils' - all for nothing.
I need to get the ones on my head to regrow.
These gerbils, are they playing chess yet? Was this research conducted by NIMH? Honestly, with all the trouble we have just getting one person's body not to reject another person's organ after a transplant, human stem cells can thrive and reconnect the hearing of a GERBIL? Does this mean that, if the every sperm is sacred wankers keep the lid on human stem cell research that we could use gerbil (or whatever more convenient nonhuman species) neural stem cells to treat human hearing problems, or maybe even Alzheimer's?
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
Seriously, just fucking fund it already. Fuck the religious ones that want to live in the dark ages, this is SCIENCE and if it can make deaf kids hear and blind kids see, then fuck whatever piece of paper says it's immoral and fuck the assholes that try to stop it.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
We have a long way to go until degenerative neural conditions are defeated, but the door has now been opened. One can confidently say its only a matter of time until they are gone.
Sorry Alzheimers, you have to leave now. :( :( :(
Sorry Parkinsons, you have to leave now.
Sorry every other neuron diseas, disorder and disability, you have to leave now.
So after all the money, time and effort spent on Embryonic Stem Cell research not a single treatment has been produced. I'm not saying that there isn't potential, there must be since so many experts rave about the the research.
Whereas Adult Stem Cell research has been producing results for a very long time. Bone marrow transplants were the first very effective treatments to use this technology.
I was born without the ability to smell. Where can I sign up for that kind of stem cell treatment?
The deaf can hear, the blind can see, the lame can walk, and we could be looking at diabetes in our rearview mirrors. Just think where medicine in the U.S. and the world could be without the ban on stem cell rescearch instituted by the "silly putty brained" evangelicals!!!!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
back in mine i have lost a few over the years.
Thanks Led Zeppelin it was worth it.
But the TV on 30 is annoying to others.
I was born with a severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss in both ears. Yeah I wear hearing aids and their modern tech has worked remarkably well to keep me integrated with the hearing world. I've accepted the fact of not having that hearing. But my hearing is declining further due to age so there could be a point if I should live long enough that more powerful hearing aids won't help me because my hearing is too far gone. So I will do whatever becomes available for regenerating the hair cells in my inner ear.
People really jumping to the HiWatt amps . . .
Again!!!
Are you saying we're giving deaf gerbils superpowered human ears, using stem cells that don't require a pound of flesh to make a small amount of stem cells?
Or did someone forget to actually RTFA ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Sorry but I just can get the image out of my head of a gerbils wearing tiny headphones being asked to raise a paw when they hear a tone. And I'm sure I don't want know how they made the gerbils deaf in the first place!
Anyone who thinks that tinnitus adds anything to life is kidding themselves. Constant ringing in your ears, worse with stress or fatigue.
I have much accumulated damage to my body, but my highest priority for improvement would be my hearing. I don't mind wearing a splint for the rest of my life to save my teeth from finally wearing to the point of mechanical failure, but I hate having tinnitus and high frequency hearing loss.
Look after your diet, people - your small blood vessels in your middle ear can get constricted with fatty crap just like your big arteries around your heart can. Reduced blood supply => increased oxidative stress => less robust neurons in your ears => increased risk of hearing loss after noise exposure.
-Snorbert, somewhere in the antipodes
I have a degenerative hearing condition called cochlear otosclerosis which wasn't diagnosed until after I had established myself as a successful airline pilot; a career I loved and was deeply invested in both professionally and personally. I have since retrained and I'm now a certified (degree-carrying) computer science nerd. Unfortunately, not a career path that was even vaguely close to first choice, but it pays the bills.
Having this condition also means there is a not insignificant risk I can pass the genes onto my children. This treatment could provide a cure for myself and a "get out of jail" for my children. I cannot describe how delightfully excited I am about the possibilities in medical science right now!
God bless those deaf people who choose not to hear. It means I will wait in a shorter line.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Both are/were of like minds on one account: they have/had an innate desire to make sure the poor suffer, for that brings them closer to God. This includes going blind, deaf, paralized, senile, dying in childbirth...
The wealthy are exempt from this rule, of course.
Would those same people then object to removing Deaf/Hard of Hearing from the list of disabilities/handicaps?
Actually, a segment of the Deaf Culture community argues that they are not disabled. What is ironic is that they still advocate for inclusion under the ADA, SSI payments and health care, and government funded telephone relay call centers.
An important distinction is that Deaf Culture members are not speaking on behalf of all deaf people. There are many, many deaf and hard of hearing people who use cochlear implants and hearing aids. Most of this population were raised by hearing parents who opted for their child to grow up in their world, rather than the world of the DC-oriented state school for the deaf system. Since 90% of the children born deaf have hearing parents, it is not surprising that many of their parents choose an oral, mainstream route. If an insular community that spoke a different language told you that, because of a physical feature on your new baby, your child should grow up in a culture other than your own, would you? It is also hard to dissuade a hearing parent of a newborn when they see an older implanted kid talking and singing - the evidence is staring them in the face.
While some kids in the oral mainstream education path end up migrating away from technology for various reasons, most stay on this track and are very technology friendly. This isn't surprising given the outcomes. Extensive, longitudinal research shows the vast majority of children implanted with a CI in their first few years and enrolled in an oral school (e.g., Option Schools) are mainstreamed into regular classrooms by kindergarten/1st grade. Mainstreaming is a huge predictor of English reading literacy (ASL is not English), which as we all know, is important for many higher income employment opportunities. You don't hear about this population because most of them melt into society.
The advance mentioned in TFA is likely to receive the same attack the DC crowd is waging on cochlear implants. They claim deaf kids should make the decision for themselves. This is a smokescreen. Kids implanted after the early language development windows (pre-5) have a much harder time learning to understand and use the sound provided by the implant due to reduced brain plasticity. If they are much older, they are also less likely to be mainstreamed and therefore behind the curve on literacy. Therefore, it is not surprising kids who are "given a choice when they are older" would have poorer outcomes and are more likely to abandon technology.
Having said all this, many adult cochlear implant and hearing aid users are unlikely to opt for this advance. If they are like my wife, they are comfortable with their hearing loss, get good use out of their cochlear implant, and don't see a strong need to change. However, this advance would have a huge impact on newborns and kids still in the language development window.