Posted on 04/23/2014 1:36:03 PM PDT by Red Badger
Researchers at UNSW Australia have for the first time used electrical pulses delivered from a cochlear implant to deliver gene therapy, thereby successfully regrowing auditory nerves.
The research also heralds a possible new way of treating a range of neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, and psychiatric conditions such as depression through this novel way of delivering gene therapy.
The research is published today (Thursday 24 April) in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
"People with cochlear implants do well with understanding speech, but their perception of pitch can be poor, so they often miss out on the joy of music," says UNSW Professor Gary Housley, who is the senior author of the research paper.
"Ultimately, we hope that after further research, people who depend on cochlear implant devices will be able to enjoy a broader dynamic and tonal range of sound, which is particularly important for our sense of the auditory world around us and for music appreciation," says Professor Housley, who is also the Director of the Translational Neuroscience Facility at UNSW Medicine.
The research, which has the support of Cochlear Limited through an Australian Research Council Linkage Project grant, has been five years in development.
The work centres on regenerating surviving nerves after age-related or environmental hearing loss, using existing cochlear technology. The cochlear implants are "surprisingly efficient" at localised gene therapy in the animal model, when a few electric pulses are administered during the implant procedure.
"This research breakthrough is important because while we have had very good outcomes with our cochlear implants so far, if we can get the nerves to grow close to the electrodes and improve the connections between them, then we'll be able to have even better outcomes in the future," says Jim Patrick, Chief Scientist and Senior Vice-President, Cochlear Limited.
It has long been established that the auditory nerve endings regenerate if neurotrophins – a naturally occurring family of proteins crucial for the development, function and survival of neurons – are delivered to the auditory portion of the inner ear, the cochlea.
But until now, research has stalled because safe, localised delivery of the neurotrophins can't be achieved using drug delivery, nor by viral-based gene therapy.
Professor Housley and his team at UNSW developed a way of using electrical pulses delivered from the cochlear implant to deliver the DNA to the cells close to the array of implanted electrodes. These cells then produce neurotrophins.
"No-one had tried to use the cochlear implant itself for gene therapy," says Professor Housley. "With our technique, the cochlear implant can be very effective for this."
While the neurotrophin production dropped away after a couple of months, Professor Housley says ultimately the changes in the hearing nerve may be maintained by the ongoing neural activity generated by the cochlear implant.
"We think it's possible that in the future this gene delivery would only add a few minutes to the implant procedure," says the paper's first author, Jeremy Pinyon, whose PhD is based on this work. "The surgeon who installs the device would inject the DNA solution into the cochlea and then fire electrical impulses to trigger the DNA transfer once the implant is inserted."
Integration of this technology into other 'bionic' devices such as electrode arrays used in deep brain stimulation (for the treatment of Parkinson's disease and depression, for example) could also afford opportunities for safe, directed gene therapy of complex neurological disorders.
"Our work has implications far beyond hearing disorders," says co-author Associate Professor Matthias Klugmann, from the UNSW Translational Neuroscience Facility research team. "Gene therapy has been suggested as a treatment concept even for devastating neurological conditions and our technology provides a novel platform for safe and efficient gene transfer into tissues as delicate as the brain."
Explore further: Design prototype chip makes possible a fully implantable cochlear implant
More information: "Close-Field Electroporation Gene Delivery Using the Cochlear Implant Electrode Array Enhances the Bionic Ear," by J.L. Pinyon et al. Science Translational Medicine, 2014.
Journal reference: Science Translational Medicine
WOW!!
If anybody wants to try this, this is a Acoustic Coordinated Reset Neuromodulation tinnitus treatment protocol that has really helped me out and I’ve only been using it for a few days. Just try to match the pitch of your tinnitus then play the ACRN and listen as long as you can, it DOES help but you have to do it for a few days.
http://www.generalfuzz.net/acrn/
Got a symphony of noise playing in my head today, but gave up on the hearing aid solutions I tried a couple of years ago so it's all on the inside, not from the outside.
Unfortunately, gawd awful, even hazardous, tech from Siemens for outrageous money has lightened my wallet, dampened my enthusiasm and has me back to au natural once more.
I've had hope we could just grow our own one day soon and it looks like we're getting closer.
I haven’t had it for that long but I have had it for around twenty years. Like yours, mine sometimes stops and sometimes it is much louder than at other times. Mine sounds like insects of some sort and the last time it went away for any length of time was in 2009 when I went with a family group and rented a beach house and went swimming in the surf every day for a week. After four or five days of spending an hour or more a day in the surf my tinnitus was almost unnoticeable but it came back within a week of returning home. Maybe I should soak my head in salt water every day.
Cured?
This could possibly lead to cure for deafness for those who have nerve damage to the auditory nerves............
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