Pharmaceutical Interventions for Hearing Loss (pihl)

Noise-induced hearing loss can be examined using the model of the junction of environmental effects on the genome and its subsequent expression in phenotype. Individual human susceptibility to noise depends on the type of noise – continuous versus impulse versus explosive, as well as intensity and frequencies, acting in concert with the cellular reaction determined by an individual’s DNA (Taggart et al., 2001). Putative genes and their single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have been studied in humans and in the laboratory; however, the application of animal studies to humans is challenging, due to the varying extent of noise exposure in both industrial and military populations, different SNPs between human and animals, and the need for population studies large enough to demonstrate statistical significance (Annelies Konings, Van Laer, & Van Camp, 2009). Over the last decade, human and laboratory studies have concentrated on candidate genes based on oxidative stress and apoptosis pathways, potassium channel recycling in the inner ear, tip-link genes, and Hsp70 genes (SliwinskaKowalska & Pawelczyk, 2013).