Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center said they have taken a step toward reversing hearing loss.
An average human is born with about 15 thousand of the tiny hairs in our ears that detect sound and transmit it to the brain. Once those hairs are damaged, they don’t naturally grow back. The resulting hearing loss affects 30 million Americans, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Now, URMC researchers said, they might have a method to repair the cells. It’s not ready for humans yet, but they’ve started testing it in mice.
Basically, said Jingyuan Zhang, they blast the mice with sound, impair their hearing, and then try to restore it.
“It’s like a rock concert for the mice,” Zhang said.
After the rodent rock show, Zhang and the team gave the mice a medicine designed to stimulate regrowth of the damaged cells in their ears.
And it worked.
Sometimes.
Zhang said they were able to restore about 10 percent of the sound-recognition cells after a couple months. She says that’s far from ideal, but, if they can achieve similar rates in humans, it might be just enough to save someone’s hearing.
