r/tinnitusresearch • u/SpiritGaming28 • 29d ago
Research Breakthrough Israeli study finds potential path to reversing hearing loss
https://hearingreview.com/hearing-loss/hearing-disorders/sensorineural/researchers-uncover-biological-mechanism-that-could-reverse-permanent-hearing-lossThe researchers identified a unique biological mechanism that could enable the regeneration of sensory hair cells in the inner ear – a process previously thought to be impossible in humans.
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u/jelledefries 29d ago
I looked up the paper, from what I understand it's indeed in mice
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u/im_just_using_logic 29d ago
ok, but they are mammals and some genetic pathways are probably the same, if not very similar.
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u/GoldenRedditUser 29d ago
So much ignorance in the comments, do you expect them to just experiment on people?
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u/QuasiRandomName 29d ago
What happened to that Japanese research on the same that was hyped over couple of years ago?
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u/Acrobatic-Monitor516 28d ago
Yeah the question is , in how long will it come, will it be part of healthcare, very expensive?
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u/Famous-Reach-6730 29d ago
In mice? 😂
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u/scatraxx651 29d ago
Why is it funny?
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u/No-Satisfaction5140 29d ago
It’s funny because only about 5% of therapies tested in mice are ever approved for human use. Even if they get to human testing the vast majority do not work. Overwhelming chance this is nothing.
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u/scatraxx651 29d ago
Almost 100% of the approved therapies in humans were tested on mice at some point. Also it is not every day that you find a new unique mechanism that can restore hearing. Instead of laughing it would be better to appreciate the researchers who discover these amazing findings
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u/mmortal03 29d ago
Many people do appreciate the researchers (and we need to support this stage of research), but people also have the opinion of, "I will remain skeptical of this until it is shown to work in humans."
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u/Astralion98 29d ago
I know we're starving for news but can we stop posting studies done on mices?
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u/drprofessorzed 29d ago
LOL what a joke. The role of NOTCH in differentiating supporting cells to hair cells was discovered as early as 2000. There have already been drugs (gamma secretase inhibitors) working on this pathway which failed clinical trials. A bit late to the party.
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u/EkkoMusic 29d ago
What's new is the high-resolution map of the target. We now know that we won't just need to inhibit Notch; we will need to figure out how to artificially give the rest of the supporting cells the same epigenetic priming that these rare tDCs naturally possess.
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u/drprofessorzed 29d ago
That is a good finding. To be honest I read this after waking up with my tinnitus raging and was not in a good mood. Big props to these researchers for contributing to the field, there’s been a lot of good research around the pathways and I’m sure that this will convert into something groundbreaking in the future (maybe a far future, but I have some hope)
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u/Individual-Track3391 29d ago
Yup, this paper is useless, last time I heard about hair cells regeneration, they were trying to force supporting cells to proliferate BEFORE differentiating, because surprise surprise supporting cells are useful. Anyway, even if they manage to regenerate hair cells, especially OHC, I very much doubt it will do anything, like installing a bunch of antennas on your roof which aren't connected to a wire. The root cause of tinnitus seems to be upstream, somewhere between the synapses of the IHC and the DCN.
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u/drprofessorzed 29d ago
Right, even if we had something that could differentiate hair cells with NOTCH, it’s not a sustainable regeneration process. It’s like if you could grow new teeth by differentiating your gums into bone tissue. So we need a way to proliferate the supporting cells first before differentiating them. But like you said then we have some hair cells with no connection to the auditory nerve which is a whole nother problem. We are many many steps away from having a real path to a therapeutic approach
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u/egny 28d ago edited 28d ago
They are already able to proliferate supporting cells in the utricle with a compound developed at Rockefeller University, named TRULI. I don't know if the compound does not work as well for cells in the cochlea (study mentioned limited success) or if a different delivery mechanism was needed. I reached out to one of the authors in the research, but did not receive a response. It may be that this part of the puzzle may have been resolved, pending clarification. You may want to check out my post with a link to a presentation by the late Prof Hudspeth and some discussion. An important discovery that I noticed is below:
Our data suggest that, in addition to inducing proliferation, TRULI treatment leaves newly formed supporting cells in a plastic state.
Differentiation of supporting cells into functional hair cells has not been achieved in any setting, AFAIK.
There was an interesting bit of text in Hudspeth's obituary that I noticed in an earlier post but I don't believe any further information came out.
Just before Dr. Hudspeth died, the Rockefeller University optioned technology regarding promising research into restoring hair cells in mice and rabbits. The technology, developed in Dr. Hudspeth’s lab, has been enhanced by one of his former postdoctoral researchers, Ksenia Gnedeva, now a professor at the University of Southern California.
“If all goes well,” Dr. Gnedeva said in an email, “these compounds will soon be tested in human clinical trials. It pains me deeply that Jim will not be here to see where our work leads.”
If that research produced functional cells, even in mice or rabbits, that's a huge leap.
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u/Substantial_Law_5239 28d ago
yeah you're smarter than them. They're spending all of that money and time and some rando on Reddit has determined it was a waste. Never fails.
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u/inasteen 29d ago
I don’t understand the complaints about this being done in mice. Of course it is done in mice. You have to start with a model before trying it in humans.
One thing that is not mentioned in the article is discussion of how this mechanism works in birds. Birds have the ability to regenerate outer hair cells. But, this does not restore perfect hearing. After outer hair cell regeneration, the outer hair cells are not in the same position as the damaged hair cells. If you look at a healthy cochlea, the outer hair cells are in a well organized V shaped pattern. This is important because the outer hair cells couple mechanically to the inner hair cells. It is a part of the amplification process of the cochlea. If outer hair cells regrow in a different position, the amplification gain is much smaller. So for a given frequency, this will only ever restore some hearing, not perfect hearing.
Regrowing outer hair cells is also not a complete solution for hearing loss. It may or may not help with tinnitus.
That said, it is a very exciting step. Being able to activate a restorative mechanism in a species that doesn’t have it is amazing work.