Facts: Hearing loss
Age-related hearing loss is the most common cause of hearing loss and affects more than 1.2 billion people worldwide.
About 90 percent of all cases can be linked to damage to some of the components of the auditory sense associated with old age.
Common symptoms of hearing loss are constant fatigue, headache, neck and shoulder pain and increased tinnitus.
The National Association of the Hearing Impaired recommends that you test your hearing every year. You can do this with a do-it-yourself test on the web or in an app.
Source: Hörsellinjen.se
In Sweden, there are about 1.5 million people with hearing loss and more than half of them are under 65 years of age. A common reason for hearing deterioration over the years is that the so-called hair cells in the ear are damaged or reduced in humans.
The decrease begins already in adolescence and occurs very slowly. By the age of 70, half of them are gone. Crocodiles, on the other hand, can regenerate hair cells. If people had the same ability, we would not suffer from hearing loss.
Now, ear researchers at the University Hospital together with researchers at Uppsala University have taken a closer look at the crocodile’s ear with electron microscopy and molecular techniques.
“Our hope is to learn how the crocodile recreates its hair cells and be able to use it on humans in the future,” says Helge Rask-Andersen, professor of experimental otology at Uppsala University and one of the researchers behind the study, in a press release.
One theory is that in the crocodile’s ears, small cell particles are secreted, which in the long run increases the sensitivity to sound and improves hearing.
“Our hypothesis is that nerves emanating from the brain, so-called efferents, are what initiate regrowth,” says Helge Rask-Andersen in the press release.
The study is published in Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.