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Proteins That May Restore Damaged Sound-Detecting Cells in the Ear

hopkinsmedicine.org

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Re: Proteins That May Restore Damaged Sound-Detecting Cells in the Ear

#21

Post by Goronmon »

lr4444lr wrote: post #16
scarygliders wrote: post #4

I was hoping to read that it might also help people like myself who suffer from tinnitus. Sadly, no. Still, if it can restore hearing to the deaf, this is a good thing.

Both of the prior posters are correct from my reading. You should also note that the comorbidity between sensorineural hearing loss and tinnitus is very high, again strongly suggesting that a subgroup will receive significant benefit if the hearing loss is fixed. In my experience, I would also recommend you seek out an ENT or audiologist that will do high frequency hearing testing (8 KHz to 16 KHz or higher). This is…

Yeah, I was diagnosed with very early stages of high frequency hearing loss after noticing tinnitus-like symptoms earlier this year. The setup was much more elaborate than the standard hearing tests I have done in the past.

Re: Proteins That May Restore Damaged Sound-Detecting Cells in the Ear

#22

Post by chiefalchemist »

Slightly off topic but (nearly) two years ago my father had a bad stoke. They keep him in a drug-induced coma for a week. Prior to the stroke his hearing was pretty bad. Loud TV, etc.

In any case, after the stroke I swear his hearing wasn't as bad. I didn't have to talk as loud. He would hear more of what was said even when it wasn't directed at him. I have no idea if his hearing is better but all the signs that said it was bad don't say that as much as often.

Re: Proteins That May Restore Damaged Sound-Detecting Cells in the Ear

#23

Post by jrace »

alecst wrote: post #17
michaelbuckbee wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My dad has severe hearing loss (hearing aids, etc.) but we made an interesting discovery: bone-conduction headphones bypass the portion of his ear that's damaged. When he first put them on he literally said: "That's better than I've heard anything sound in a decade". YMMV but it might be something useful to try with your wife.

That's weird. I wonder what the physical reason could be, if (e.g.) it's the eardrum that's acting up on top of the damaged cochlea. (Could there be wax buildup?)

Not weird, but a 'conductive' hearing loss.

In this case the sound that arrives at the eardrum does not conduct through the middle ear bones to the cochlea.

Wax will only cause a slight drop in hearing thresholds.

This can be determined with a standard hearing exam.

Re: Proteins That May Restore Damaged Sound-Detecting Cells in the Ear

#24

Post by mentat »

Beltiras wrote: post #3

My wife has premature hearing loss of an unknown cause. Doctor kind of shrugged when asked what could be done about it. This was some 15 years ago. I'll push her to make an appointment with a doc again to see if something new has been discovered.

Modern hearing aids work pretty well at least for moderate loss. I tried previous ones and they were not helpful. Have had Oticon OPN and now OPN S for the last 4 years and it's been transformative.

Still, it's software which you can't manage yourself. Any Oticon people on here, handling of the release of S w/ feedback shield issues with high pitched voices was done quite poorly.

There are some large and fairly extensive genetic panels that can be run within months now for a few thousand if insurance doesn't cover. Unfortunately they don't have the variants causing my loss. Looking at full exome sequencing at Stanford but insurance is balking and it's 10k.

Re: Proteins That May Restore Damaged Sound-Detecting Cells in the Ear

#25

Post by xtracto »

scarygliders wrote: post #4

I was hoping to read that it might also help people like myself who suffer from tinnitus. Sadly, no. Still, if it can restore hearing to the deaf, this is a good thing.

I myself have tinnitus as well. Curious if you have tried the Notched music approach ( https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1630358227661185623... ) or the Neighbouring Tones ( https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1037530052919306668... ) approach. Apparently both of the have had some kind of success in treating tinnitus.

Unfortunately for me, they work better for "lower" frequencies. My tinnitus is around 10,000hz for which these "therapies" don't have as much impact.

Re: Proteins That May Restore Damaged Sound-Detecting Cells in the Ear

#26

Post by heyoni »

alecst wrote: post #10
scarygliders wrote: post #4

I was hoping to read that it might also help people like myself who suffer from tinnitus. Sadly, no. Still, if it can restore hearing to the deaf, this is a good thing.

Even though it wasn't mentioned in the article, a lot of researchers in this field believe that a cure for hearing loss will take care of tinnitus and hyperacusis too, at least for a patient subgroup. There's tinnitus caused by muscle tension/dysfunction (?) which is of an entirely different etiology apparently, but the good news is that that kind seems more treatable than the kind caused by permanent hearing dysfunc…

Tinnitus being caused by muscle tension could explain why ADHD medications have that as a side effect?

Re: Proteins That May Restore Damaged Sound-Detecting Cells in the Ear

#27

Post by akeck »

scarygliders wrote: post #4

I was hoping to read that it might also help people like myself who suffer from tinnitus. Sadly, no. Still, if it can restore hearing to the deaf, this is a good thing.

YMMV (from Reddit thread):

---

Strong temporary relief from tinnitus:

Place the palms of your hands over your ears with fingers resting gently on the back of your head. Your middle fingers should point toward one another just above the base of your skull. Place your index fingers on top of you middle fingers and snap them (the index fingers) onto the skull making a loud, drumming noise. Repeat 40-50 times. Some people experience immediate relief with this method. Repeat several times a day for as long as necessary to reduce tinnitus.

~ Dr. Jan Strydom, of A2Z of Health, Beauty and Fitness.org.

Re: Proteins That May Restore Damaged Sound-Detecting Cells in the Ear

#28

Post by tim333 »

alecst wrote: post #15
hprotagonist wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Restoration of hair cells may have knock-on effects for tinnitus. If tinnitus is a maladaptive neuroplasticity (your brain "needs" to hear something so if it can't because you're deaf at that frequency it'll invent things for you to hear instead) that makes sense to model as some stable limit cycle of a nonlinear system -- which is one of the leading hypotheses for tinnitus right now -- then it's not totally implausi…

Yes -- although there are lots of folks with hearing loss who don't have tinnitus. There must be more to the story than just the ghost ringing that you're talking about. But I do think that the hypothesis you quote makes intuitive sense, at least as much as these hypercomplex things can be intuitive.

As you say people can lose hearing without tinnitus. Having mild tinnitus myself and looked up how the hearing system works, I think the lead suspect must be the gizmo that converts the mechanical movement of sound waves into the ion level changes of neural impulses. It looks a bit like a tube that is opened or closed a little by movement of the hair attached to it, letting K+ ions through the hole or not. Damage to that could let ions go through when there is no actual movement of the hair.

It's kind of remarkable the things work as well as they do given the difference between 0db where you can just hear and 110db or so where it breaks is a 300,000x or so difference in amplitude.

(diagram of movement to ion flow gizmo close up https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Schematic-Diagram-of-Ste... zoomed out a bit https://jcs.biologists.org/content/joces/126/8/1721/F1.large...)

Re: Proteins That May Restore Damaged Sound-Detecting Cells in the Ear

#29

Post by Medicalidiot »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #22

Slightly off topic but (nearly) two years ago my father had a bad stoke. They keep him in a drug-induced coma for a week. Prior to the stroke his hearing was pretty bad. Loud TV, etc. In any case, after the stroke I swear his hearing wasn't as bad. I didn't have to talk as loud. He would hear more of what was said even when it wasn't directed at him. I have no idea if his hearing is better but all the signs that said…

There are some conditions, like cranial nerve VII (facial nerve) palsy, where hyperacousis is a symptom. You have a couple muscles in your ear that attenuate sound, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that something happened to your father and his hearing improved.

Re: Proteins That May Restore Damaged Sound-Detecting Cells in the Ear

#30

Post by MS90 »

I'll be interested to see how this pans out. I have significant hearing loss in both ears from infections as a baby, and the doctors always said it was because the hairs in my cochlea are dead. I was denied a few opportunities when I was younger due to my hearing, and I still can't hear most higher frequency sounds (whistles, some cymbals, smoke detectors, fire alarms...etc). It would be nice to be able to hear what everyone else hears and not have to say "what?" so often.

Though, as a bald man, I've learned not to get too hopeful about scientific advancements in regrowing hairs ;)

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