Acoustic trauma, one of the leading causes of sensorineural hearing loss, induces sensory hair cell damage in the cochlea. Identifying the molecular mechanisms involved in regulating sensory hair cell death is critical towards developing effective treatments for preventing hair cell damage. Recently, microRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to participate in the regulatory mechanisms of inner ear dev...

Objectives: Phonemic awareness skills have a significant impact on children speech and language. The purpose of this study was investigating the phonemic awareness skills of children with cochlear implant and normal hearing peers in primary school. Methods: phonemic awareness subscales of phonological awareness test were administered to 30 children with cochlear implantation at the first to ...

Ever since Pliny the Elder coined the term tinnitus, the perception of sound in the absence of an external sound source has remained enigmatic. Traditional theories assume that tinnitus is triggered by cochlear damage, but many tinnitus patients present with a normal audiogram, i.e., with no direct signs of cochlear damage. Here, we report that in human subjects with tinnitus and a normal audio...

Acoustic trauma is one of the major causes of hearing loss and tinnitus, particularly in industrial environments. Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) results in direct mechanical damage as well as in indirect metabolic processes. Metabolic disorders have multiple origins: ionic, ischemic, excitotoxic and production of cochlear free radicals causing cell death, due to necrosis or apoptosis. The ef...

The possible synergism between noise and aspirin for causing cochlear damage was examined histologically. Six chicks fed aspirin for five days and five chicks fed a normal diet only were paired and placed in sound chambers. They were exposed to a 1500-Hz tone at 115 dB sound pressure level for eight hours. The mean serum salicylate level just before noise exposure was 24 mg/dL (1.74 mmol/L). Te...

Evidence is presented to support the hypothesis that the cochleae of young animals are more susceptible to auditory trauma than the cochleae of the adult. A sensitive period of heightened susceptibility to acoustic trauma from noise exposure has been demonstrated in three mammalian species. The cochlear pathology associated with this trauma is severe damage to the outer hair cell system. Abnorm...

The inner ear was previously assumed to be an "immune-privileged" organ due to the existence of its tight junction-based blood-labyrinth barrier. However, studies performed during the past decade revealed that the mesenchymal region of the cochlea, including its lateral wall, is a common site of inflammation. Neutrophils do not enter this region, which is consistent with the old dogma; however,...

Multisensory neurons in the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN) achieve their bimodal response properties [Shore (2005) Eur. J. Neurosci., 21, 3334-3348] by integrating auditory input via VIIIth nerve fibers with somatosensory input via the axons of cochlear nucleus granule cells [Shore et al. (2000) J. Comp. Neurol., 419, 271-285; Zhou & Shore (2004)J. Neurosci. Res., 78, 901-907]. A unique feature ...

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS An intraoperative monitoring algorithm during cochlear implant electrode insertion could be used to detect trauma and guide electrode placement relative to surviving hair cells. The aim of this report was to assess the feasibility of using extracochlear recording sites to monitor acoustically evoked responses from surviving hair cells and neural elements during implantatio...

OBJECTIVE The therapeutic use of ototoxic drugs is relatively common, particularly in patients with severe diseases. It is likely that disturbances of balance in these patients are underestimated by clinicians. MATERIALS AND METHODS The purpose of this study was to identify drugs involved in the vestibulotoxic origin of instability in a group of 18 patients. RESULTS Six patients showed both...