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Drug Allows Deafened Mice to Regrow Inner Ear Hair

Posted by Unknown on from the turn-it-up-to-11 dept.

sciencehabit writes "All you graying, half-deaf Def Leppard fans, listen up. A drug applied to the ears of mice deafened by noise can restore some hearing in the animals. By blocking a key protein, the drug allows sound-sensing cells that are damaged by noise to regrow. The treatment isn't anywhere near ready for use in humans, but the advance at least raises the prospect of restoring hearing to some deafened people."

14 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. But... by bmo · · Score: 4, Funny

    But I have hair in my ears. I need it under my hat!

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    BMO

  2. Sweet. by geekoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    maybe they can cure tinnitus .

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    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    1. Re:Sweet. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      This.

      Advice to those younger than me: WEAR FRIGGEN EAR PLUGS. It doesn't matter how dorky you think it looks. You WILL regret it if you don't.

      A few years in college of night clubs, concerts, and parties was enough to set off a lifetime of tinnitus.

      My ears ring constantly and it will never, ever stop.

    2. Re:Sweet. by mandginguero · · Score: 3, Interesting

      it may not be a cure, but Otosound (http://www.otosound.com/) has a therapy device they are working on, and I've overheard some talk of clinical trials in Europe.

      --
      i don't know karate, but i know ca-razy
    3. Re:Sweet. by Hatta · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Ear plugs are the greatest. I wear Ety plugs whenver I go to a concert. These have fairly flat frequency response, and are pretty comfortable too. I was third row center at Phish with these, and had no ringing, fuzziness or any other hearing problems immediately afterwards. I've seen other LOUD concerts in small venues, P-Funk, Buckethead, shitty local punk bands, etc. with similar results. Honestly, once the levels get high enough you get more distortion without earplugs than with them.

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  3. Def Leppard fans are probably better off over time by Picass0 · · Score: 2

    ... than the hearing of younger music fans listening to todays music. It's well established recording levels on newer, digitally mixed music is higher and features fewer audio low points than music from the early 90's and prior.

    Also consider ear buds are the new norm for most music players, delivering sound directly to the ear canal. Your parents had walkmen with crappy foam headphones that didn't stay centered over the ear all that well.

  4. Noise by SJHillman · · Score: 2

    "the drug allows sound-sensing cells that are damaged by noise to regrow."

    So those of us half deaf from other causes are still out of luck? Way to lead me on, Slashdot.

  5. All a matter of time.... EXCEPT... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Deaf people re-growing inner ear parts...
    Blind people re-growing eyes and optic nerves...
    Alcoholics re-growing a liver...
    Soldiers re-growing limbs....

    It's all possible, given time to develop these things... EXCEPT...

    I just can't grow a set of balls and stand up to my wife!

  6. Alternate use. by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Could this be used to reverse or at least slow down age-related hearing loss? People are living so much longer than they used to, so we need every medical trick we can devise to lessen the detriments of age.

    1. Re:Alternate use. by Alphadecay27 · · Score: 2
      They administered the drug the day after the damage occurred. The article states that it is not clear whether it would be effective for long term hearing loss. The actual study is behind a paywall but the highlights don't seem to indicate any perceived limitation based on time. They state that:

      hair cell generation resulted from transdifferentiation of supporting cells.

      My (completely uneducated) guess would be that it should restore some level of hearing in age related cases since it is inducing new cell growth not just healing or multiplying existing cells.

    2. Re:Alternate use. by mcgrew · · Score: 2

      Could this be used to reverse or at least slow down age-related hearing loss?

      I could be mistaken, but I think what most call "age related" just means that the damage to your ears over the years is cumulative. If I'm right, then yes, it would.

      People are living so much longer than they used to

      Only statistically; individuals are still having heart attacks in their forties and cancers even among children. The reason the statistics say we're living longer is because some diseases and injuries that would previously have been fatal are more easily treated or have been wiped out, industry has been made to be safer, cars are far safer (note that fatalities have been dropping yearly for decades). OTOH my grandmother was born in 1903 and lived a hundred years.

      Statistics only give the odds; there are always outliers. An example is my great uncle, who started smoking at age 12, quit at age 82 and died ten years later. Statistics taken like most people take them would seem to suggest that my uncle was an impossibility, but statistics is just a game of the odds.

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  7. At a concert I went to .... by sandytaru · · Score: 2

    The tech guys had a big meter with numbers on it that seemed to also be "dancing" in time with the music. Mostly wobbling between 110 and 118 with some fractions in between. I had earplugs in, but after a while I realized it was ensuring that the decibels never got above 120, the point at which permanent hearing loss occurs.

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    Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
  8. Inner Ear Hair Club for Men by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

    I'm not just a client...

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  9. Re:Def Leppard fans are probably better off over t by mcgrew · · Score: 2

    Well, no, I think you're wrong and have it backwards. Listen to an old LP like Boston or Santana Abraxis and you're going to have to have it cranked to hear the soft parts while the loud parts will be LOUD. Back then, audio engineers did all they could to put that last decibel of dynamic range to use. Despite the fact that CDs have a superior range, today's engineers (like you say) have it all cranked. So you're not going to be listening to Pantera as loud as you listened to Led Zeppelin*.

    That said, the only ones who are going to lose hearing from music are the musicians themselves. Most people lose their hearing from their jobs; hammers and chain saws and jet engines and factories are far louder than your super-duper high watt car stereo, and orders of magnatude louder than what comes out of an ear bud.

    I'm 60 and have been listening to loud rock all my life and I have no hearing problems, although the Air Force doctors detected a 10% loss in my left ear when my enlistment was up, and I immediately knew why they had instituted the rule that the aircraft always has to be to the left of your vehicle -- it's so you only go deaf in one ear. But even after half a century of Led Zeppelin and Van halen and Ozzie and playing my own guitar, my hearing is about what it was back in 1975 when I got out of the USAF.

    If you go hunting, wear ear protection. If you work construction wear ear protection. If you work in a factory it's probably mandated.

    But don't worry about the music unless you're the drumer or bass player standing right in front of the speaker for four hours five nights a week. If you are, wear ear protection.

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