Researchers have repaired an auditory nerve by introducing a gene into ear cells — after zapping them with electricity from a hearing device.
Electrical impulses from cochlear implants not only stimulate the auditory nerve in people with deafness, but also make cells permeable to DNA.
Gary Housley and his colleagues at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, used cochlear implants in deaf guinea pigs (pictured; implant in red) to deliver a gene encoding neurotrophin, a protein that stimulates nerve growth, to specific inner-ear cells. They found that the auditory nerve began to regenerate, extended towards the cochlea and showed greater sensitivity than in untreated animals.
A similar method using electrodes implanted in the brain could repair brain cells as a way to treat neurological disorders, the authors say.
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Ear implant helps to repair nerves. Nature 509, 10 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/509010a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/509010a
