About this Research Topic
Over 40 million Americans suffer from disabling hearing loss (HL), making it the third most prevalent chronic health condition following arthritis and heart disease (Goman & Lin, 2016, 2018; Li-Korotky, 2012). Untreated or ineffective hearing treatments have detrimental impacts on an individual’s physiological, psychological and emotional well-being (Kobosko et al., 2021). The rapidly increasing number of individuals suffering from debilitating hearing loss calls for an urgent need to identify appropriate treatment options to mitigate the condition’s effects and elevate quality of life. Treatments for hearing loss often involve a hearing aid or cochlear implant; however, the criteria for the two treatments overlap with no assurance that the invasive treatment will result in better performance than with a hearing aid. In efforts to identify appropriate treatments, a thorough understanding of the underlying peripheral causes is imperative. Specifically, implementation of genetic testing, electrophysiology, drug delivery, and stem cell therapeutics are all methods to gain further insight on the peripheral health and function of hearing.
The goal of this Research Topic is to present evidence of inner ear damage in response to differing etiologies. Specifically, identifying the differences in behavior of the inner ear structures in response to noise exposure, ototoxicity, or chronic inflammatory diseases and monitoring the change of the structures over time. Despite a large variety of underlying peripheral dysfunction, the patient may present to the clinic with similar audiometric profiles yet may respond to invasive or non-invasive treatments very differently. The purpose of this journal issue is to disseminate a collection of papers using non-traditional treatments such as genetic therapy, electrophysiology, drug delivery, and stem cell therapeutics to fully grasp the magnitude of damage to the inner ear.
The call for papers should include both animal and human studies investigating methods to identify the site of lesion in the periphery and potential treatments that may lead to improving the function of those structures or maximizing outcomes with more invasive hearing treatments such as cochlear implants. Additionally, papers included should address the current challenges faced with clinical trials and the confounding questions surrounding the translational research from animal studies to humans. The overarching theme should be to fight the “war on hearing loss” and how to mitigate the negative impacts of hearing loss on the patient and families.
The goal of this Research Topic is to present evidence of inner ear damage in response to differing etiologies. Specifically, identifying the differences in behavior of the inner ear structures in response to noise exposure, ototoxicity, or chronic inflammatory diseases and monitoring the change of the structures over time. Despite a large variety of underlying peripheral dysfunction, the patient may present to the clinic with similar audiometric profiles yet may respond to invasive or non-invasive treatments very differently. The purpose of this journal issue is to disseminate a collection of papers using non-traditional treatments such as genetic therapy, electrophysiology, drug delivery, and stem cell therapeutics to fully grasp the magnitude of damage to the inner ear.
The call for papers should include both animal and human studies investigating methods to identify the site of lesion in the periphery and potential treatments that may lead to improving the function of those structures or maximizing outcomes with more invasive hearing treatments such as cochlear implants. Additionally, papers included should address the current challenges faced with clinical trials and the confounding questions surrounding the translational research from animal studies to humans. The overarching theme should be to fight the “war on hearing loss” and how to mitigate the negative impacts of hearing loss on the patient and families.
Keywords: cochlear implants, neurotrophins, inner ear drug delivery
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
