Hearing ResearchPub Date : 2025-06-06DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2025.109328
Federico Ceriani , Joshua Giles , Neil J Ingham , Jing-Yi Jeng , Morag A Lewis , Karen P Steel , Mahnaz Arvaneh , Walter Marcotti
{"title":"A machine-learning-based approach to predict early hallmarks of progressive hearing loss","authors":"Federico Ceriani , Joshua Giles , Neil J Ingham , Jing-Yi Jeng , Morag A Lewis , Karen P Steel , Mahnaz Arvaneh , Walter Marcotti","doi":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109328","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109328","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Machine learning (ML) techniques are increasingly being used to improve disease diagnosis and treatment. However, the application of these computational approaches to the early diagnosis of age-related hearing loss (ARHL), the most common sensory deficit in adults, remains underexplored. Here, we demonstrate the potential of ML for identifying early signs of ARHL in adult mice. We used auditory brainstem responses (ABRs), which are non-invasive electrophysiological recordings that can be performed in both mice and humans, as a readout of hearing function. We recorded ABRs from C57BL/6N mice (6N), which develop early-onset ARHL due to a hypomorphic allele of <em>Cadherin23</em> (<em>Cdh23<sup>ahl</sup></em>), and from co-isogenic C57BL/6NTac<em><sup>Cdh23+</sup></em> mice (6N-Repaired), which do not harbour the <em>Cdh23<sup>ahl</sup></em> allele and maintain good hearing until later in life. We evaluated several ML classifiers across different metrics for their ability to distinguish between the two mouse strains based on ABRs. Remarkably, the models accurately identified mice carrying the <em>Cdh23<sup>ahl</sup></em> allele even in the absence of obvious signs of hearing loss at 1 month of age, surpassing the classification accuracy of human experts. Feature importance analysis using Shapley values indicated that subtle differences in ABR wave 1 were critical for distinguishing between the two genotypes. This superior performance underscores the potential of ML approaches in detecting subtle phenotypic differences that may elude manual classification. Additionally, we successfully trained regression models capable of predicting ARHL progression rate at older ages from ABRs recorded in younger mice. We propose that ML approaches are suitable for the early diagnosis of ARHL and could potentially improve the success of future treatments in humans by predicting the progression of hearing dysfunction.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12881,"journal":{"name":"Hearing Research","volume":"464 ","pages":"Article 109328"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144298361","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hearing ResearchPub Date : 2025-06-05DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2025.109324
Renata Sisto , Arturo Moleti
{"title":"Contribution of the reticular lamina motion to the traveling wave: a WKB approach","authors":"Renata Sisto , Arturo Moleti","doi":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109324","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109324","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Optical coherence tomography (OCT) experiments showed that, in the peak region, at low stimulus levels, the motion of the reticular lamina (RL) may be larger than that of the basilar membrane (BM), suggesting that the contribution of the RL motion to the development of a slow traveling wave (TW) could be a relevant one. In this study, a transmission-line cochlear model with two mechanical degrees of freedom at each tonotopic place is used, in which the outer hair cell (OHC) force is represented by a low-pass filtered elastic term proportional to the OHC elongation. The hydrodynamic effects of fluid focusing and viscous damping in the peak region are also included in the model. In the simulations, the contribution of the RL motion to the traveling wave is due to the volume change of the Organ of Corti (OoC), which adds up to the antisymmetric volume change of the two scalae associated with the BM motion. Including the RL motion in the computation of the local wavenumber in the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) framework implies a change of both the focusing factor and of the real part of the admittance, dependent on the phase of the relative RL-BM motion. To make the RL contribution on focusing the most effective, the BM and the RL should be approximately in phase in the peak region, which, in the model, is consistent with a dominant gain effect of fluid focusing over OHC internal force in the peak region. The negative/positive sign of the RL-BM local phase shift would imply an additional damping/antidamping effect, which is more difficult to predict, and model-dependent.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12881,"journal":{"name":"Hearing Research","volume":"464 ","pages":"Article 109324"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144242900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hearing ResearchPub Date : 2025-06-03DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2025.109325
Thomas M.D. Augereau , Daniel Paromov , Adriana B.M. Lacerda , Victoria Duda , François Champoux
{"title":"Electrophysiological markers of early auditory temporal resolution deterioration with aging","authors":"Thomas M.D. Augereau , Daniel Paromov , Adriana B.M. Lacerda , Victoria Duda , François Champoux","doi":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109325","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109325","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Aging significantly impacts auditory perception, particularly temporal resolution, which is the ability to detect rapid changes in sounds. Temporal resolution is often studied using gap detection methods, where a silent gap is inserted into a longer noise duration. Previous research indicates that aging negatively affects gap detection at the behavioral level. To objectively examine this process, electrophysiological correlates can be studied using a multi-deviant oddball paradigm. Existing data show reduced Deviant-Related Negativity (DRN) amplitudes and increased latencies in older adults compared to younger adults, suggesting a pre-attentive decline in processing basic temporal stimulus features. The effects of aging on gap detection have not been extensively investigated, making it uncertain whether changes can be detected in groups with smaller age differences. This study aims to investigate DRN and P2/P3a components in healthy, normal-hearing young (18-25 years) and middle-aged (30-45 years) adults using a multi-deviant paradigm combined with a behavioral gap audibility task with fixed gap durations. While behavioral task results were inconclusive, DRN latency analysis revealed significant differences during adaptation to deviant stimuli between age groups at various gap durations, displaying opposite slopes between both groups. Specifically, middle-aged participants exhibited increasing slopes, while younger participants showed decreasing slopes. Additionally, middle-aged adults exhibited significantly increased P2/P3a latencies compared to younger adults. These findings not only confirm the impact of aging on DRN during temporal resolution tasks but also suggest that examining the P2/P3a component could be valuable for early detection of age-related auditory decline.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12881,"journal":{"name":"Hearing Research","volume":"464 ","pages":"Article 109325"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-06-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144242898","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hearing ResearchPub Date : 2025-06-01DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2025.109323
Enrique Saldaña , Fernando de Castro , Dolores E. López , Manuel S. Malmierca
{"title":"Miguel A. Merchán and the Cajalian influence: Pioneering auditory neuroscience in Spain","authors":"Enrique Saldaña , Fernando de Castro , Dolores E. López , Manuel S. Malmierca","doi":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109323","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109323","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article traces the history of auditory neuroscience in Spain. It begins with the pioneering contributions of Santiago Ramón y Cajal, who meticulously described the organization of every region of the auditory system, from the cochlea to the cerebral cortex. His legacy continued with his disciples, Rafael Lorente de Nó, who conducted a detailed study of the cochlear nuclei, and Fernando de Castro, who later passed the baton to Jaime A. Merchán. Jaime Merchán revitalized Spanish auditory neuroscience and mentored his brother Miguel, whose contributions receive special focus.</div><div>Starting in the early 1980s, Miguel A. Merchán’s pioneering research has profoundly expanded our understanding of the structure and connectivity in the central auditory system. His collaborations, both within Spain and internationally, have played a pivotal role in shaping the field. As his career progressed, his research evolved to investigate the plasticity of the auditory system, and his recent work continues to explore innovative approaches to protect and restore hearing, with significant clinical implications.</div><div>Beyond his scientific accomplishments, Miguel Merchán’s influence as a mentor and administrator further highlights his enduring legacy. His contributions have not only advanced the field but have also nurtured the development of future generations of Spanish scientists, encouraging collaboration and innovation in the scientific community. His work continues to inspire emerging researchers, while his ongoing investigations into auditory system plasticity and protection hold promise for vital breakthroughs in the understanding and treatment of hearing loss and related disorders.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12881,"journal":{"name":"Hearing Research","volume":"464 ","pages":"Article 109323"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144242899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hearing ResearchPub Date : 2025-05-29DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2025.109322
Jin Sun , Baohong Wen , Zijun Liu , Yulin Zhang , Le Wang , Yong Zhang , Jingliang Cheng
{"title":"Alterations in functional connectivity related to prognosis in unilateral sudden sensorineural hearing loss","authors":"Jin Sun , Baohong Wen , Zijun Liu , Yulin Zhang , Le Wang , Yong Zhang , Jingliang Cheng","doi":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109322","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109322","url":null,"abstract":"<div><h3>Objectives</h3><div>Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSNHL) is a critical otological emergency characterized by a rapid decline in hearing, primarily affecting one ear. The exact cause of SSNHL remains unclear, which complicates both diagnosis and treatment. This study aimed to explore changes in functional connectivity (FC) related to prognosis in patients with unilateral SSNHL, thereby enhancing our understanding of the potential neural correlates associated with clinical outcomes.</div></div><div><h3>Materials and Methods</h3><div>The study involved 111 patients diagnosed with unilateral SSNHL, who underwent audiological evaluations and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, focusing on changes in FC related to their prognosis.</div></div><div><h3>Results</h3><div>Significant differences were found between the effective (<em>n</em> = 72) and ineffective (<em>n</em> = 39) treatment groups regarding the duration from onset to treatment and the presence of dizziness. Compared with effective group, the cohort with a poor prognosis demonstrated a significant increase in FC between the bilateral superior temporal gyrus (STG) and the left hippocampus, right supramarginal gyrus (SMG), left middle frontal gyrus (MFG), and right precuneus.</div></div><div><h3>Conclusion</h3><div>The research highlights the significance of investigating the alterations in FC observed in patients experiencing SSNHL. These findings suggest a potential association between altered FC and patient outcomes, which could contribute to future studies on the neural mechanisms underlying SSNHL.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12881,"journal":{"name":"Hearing Research","volume":"464 ","pages":"Article 109322"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144205776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hearing ResearchPub Date : 2025-05-24DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2025.109321
Sónia L. Coelho de Sousa , Miriam I. Marrufo Pérez , Peter T. Johannesen , Marcelo Gómez Álvarez , Enrique A. Lopez-Poveda
{"title":"No association between idiopathic hidden hearing loss and behavioral adaptation to noise in humans","authors":"Sónia L. Coelho de Sousa , Miriam I. Marrufo Pérez , Peter T. Johannesen , Marcelo Gómez Álvarez , Enrique A. Lopez-Poveda","doi":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109321","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109321","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Adaptation to noise refers to the improvement in word-in-noise recognition as words are delayed a few hundred milliseconds in the noise. This adaptation is thought to reflect adjustments of the dynamic range of auditory neurons to the most frequent noise level. Evidence from a mouse model suggests that hidden hearing loss (HHL), a diminished auditory nerve response without a hearing loss, selectively impairs neural dynamic range adaptation to loud sound environments. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether HHL is associated with poor behavioral adaptation to loud noise in speech recognition.</div><div>For 89 people (aged 19–86 years) with clinically normal hearing, we measured speech reception thresholds (SRTs; signal-to-noise ratios at 50 % recognition) for disyllabic words in stationary, speech-shaped noise. SRTs were measured for words delayed 50 and 800 ms in the noise and for noise levels of 55 and 78 dB SPL. Adaptation was calculated as the SRT improvement in the long-delay relative to the short-delay condition. Because adaptation is greater for vocoded than for natural words, words were processed through a tone vocoder. The response of the auditory nerve was assessed using the amplitude of the auditory brainstem response (ABR) wave I and the rate of growth (slope) of the wave I amplitude with increasing stimulus level.</div><div>Adaptation occurred at the two noise levels but was greater for the louder noise than for the softer noise (2.3 dB vs 1.3 dB, respectively). This happened because SRTs were worse for the louder noise in the short but not in the long delay condition. The large variability in ABR wave I amplitude (0.10 to 0.54 μV) and slope (-0.004 to 0.023 μV/dB) suggested that the sample included participants with varying degrees of HHL of uncertain etiology (idiopathic). However, adaptation was not correlated with the wave I amplitude or slope, even after accounting for the potential confounding effect of elevated hearing thresholds in an extended frequency range.</div><div>Findings suggest that adaptation to noise in speech recognition is greater at higher noise levels but provide no evidence that idiopathic HHL leads to reduced adaptation to noise in humans.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12881,"journal":{"name":"Hearing Research","volume":"464 ","pages":"Article 109321"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144167519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hearing ResearchPub Date : 2025-05-23DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2025.109319
Hong-Bo Zhao , Li-Man Liu , Xiaoling Lu , Auraemil T Quinonez , Rafael A Roberts , Tian-Ying Zhai , Chun Liang
{"title":"Prevention and treatment of noise-induced hearing loss and cochlear synapse degeneration by potassium channel blockers in vivo","authors":"Hong-Bo Zhao , Li-Man Liu , Xiaoling Lu , Auraemil T Quinonez , Rafael A Roberts , Tian-Ying Zhai , Chun Liang","doi":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109319","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109319","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Noise can induce hearing loss. In particular, noise can induce cochlear synapse degeneration leading to hidden hearing loss, which is the most common type of hearing disorders in the clinic. Currently, there is no pharmacological treatment, especially no post-exposure (i.e., therapeutic) treatment available in the clinic. Here, we report that systemic administration of K<sup>+</sup> channel blockers by intraperitoneal injection before or after noise exposure significantly ameliorated noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) and cochlear synapse degeneration. After systemic administration of a general K<sup>+</sup>-channel blocker tetraethylammonium (TEA) before or after noise exposure, the noise-induced threshold elevation of auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) and reduction of suprathreshold responses were significantly attenuated. The impairment on the active cochlear mechanics measured by distortion product otoacoustic emission (DPOAE) was also reduced. The therapeutic effect was further improved as the post-exposure administration time extended. BK channel is a predominant K<sup>+</sup> channel in the inner hair cell. We further found that post-exposure administration of a BK channel blocker GAL-021 could ameliorate NIHL and improved the hearing behavioral responses examined by acoustic startle response (ASR). Finally, both TEA and GAL-021 significantly reduced noise-induced ribbon synapse degeneration. These findings demonstrate a promise of systemic administration of K<sup>+</sup> channel blockers to treat synapse degeneration and NIHL after noise exposure, which currently is urgently required in the clinic.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12881,"journal":{"name":"Hearing Research","volume":"464 ","pages":"Article 109319"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144178817","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hearing ResearchPub Date : 2025-05-19DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2025.109303
Nathan Gagné , Keelin M. Greenlaw , Emily B.J. Coffey
{"title":"Sound degradation type differentially affects neural indicators of cognitive workload and speech tracking","authors":"Nathan Gagné , Keelin M. Greenlaw , Emily B.J. Coffey","doi":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109303","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109303","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Hearing-in-noise (HIN) is a challenging task that is essential to human functioning in social, vocational, and educational contexts. Successful speech perception in noisy settings is thought to rely in part on the brain's ability to enhance neural representations of attended speech. In everyday HIN situations, important features of speech (i.e., pitch, rhythm) may be degraded in addition to being embedded in noise. The impact of these differences in sound quality on experiences of workload and neural representations of speech will be important for informing our knowledge on the cognitive demands imposed by every-day difficult listening situations. We investigated HIN perception in 20 healthy adults using continuous speech that was either clean, spectrally degraded, or temporally degraded. Each sound condition was presented both with and without pink noise. Participants engaged in a selective listening task, in which a short-story was presented with varying sound quality, while EEG data were recorded. Neural correlates of cognitive workload were obtained using power levels of two frequency bands sensitive to task difficulty manipulations: alpha (8 – 12 Hz) and theta (4 – 8 Hz). Acoustic and linguistic features (speech envelope, word onsets, word surprisal) were decoded to reveal the degree to which speech was successfully encoded. Overall, alpha-theta power increased significantly when noise was added across sound conditions, while prediction accuracy of speech tracking decreased, suggesting that more effort was required to listen, and that the speech was not as successfully encoded. The temporal degradation also resulted in greater EEG power, possibly as a function of a compensatory mechanism to restore the important temporal information required for speech comprehension. Our findings suggest that measures related to cognitive workload and successful speech encoding are differentially affected by noise and sound degradations, which may help to inform future interventions that aim to mitigate these every-day challenges.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12881,"journal":{"name":"Hearing Research","volume":"464 ","pages":"Article 109303"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144125168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hearing ResearchPub Date : 2025-05-17DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2025.109310
Zhiqiang Wang , Lixin Gong , Huan Wu , Jiang Feng , Tinglei Jiang
{"title":"Auditory sensitivity in the great evening bat (Ia io): Insights from auditory brainstem response","authors":"Zhiqiang Wang , Lixin Gong , Huan Wu , Jiang Feng , Tinglei Jiang","doi":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109310","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109310","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The great evening bat (<em>Ia io</em>), a large frequency-modulating (FM) bat species in the Vespertilionidae family, may exhibit unique auditory adaptations that support its bird-predatory behavior. In this study, we employed auditory brainstem response (ABR) measurements to evaluate the auditory sensitivity of five adult male <em>I. io</em> across a 2 to 80 kHz frequency range. The results showed the most sensitive auditory threshold appears at 24–28 kHz (range 24 to 32 kHz for individual bats), aligning with the species’ peak frequency of echolocation calls, enhancing large prey detection and localization. ABRs identify five distinct wave peaks (P1–P5) at high sound pressure levels, with the largest amplitude peak observed for P4. Furthermore, <em>I. io</em> has lower auditory thresholds across higher frequencies than most other FM bats. These findings suggest <em>I. io</em> has a broad auditory range that may facilitate adaptive flexibility in varied ecological settings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12881,"journal":{"name":"Hearing Research","volume":"464 ","pages":"Article 109310"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144115219","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hearing ResearchPub Date : 2025-05-17DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2025.109311
Scott Page , Roozbeh Ghaffari , Dennis M. Freeman
{"title":"Visualization of relative cochlear motions using high resolution optical coherence microscopy","authors":"Scott Page , Roozbeh Ghaffari , Dennis M. Freeman","doi":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109311","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.heares.2025.109311","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite enormous progress in understanding the electro-mechanical properties of outer hair cells and the molecular basis of these properties, less is known about the relative motion of the organ of Corti and accessory structures that shape cochlear responses to acoustic stimulation. Here, we characterize absolute and relative motions of apical regions of the excised gerbil cochleae using a custom Doppler optical coherence microscopy (DOCM) system. Responses to sinusoidal stimuli show nanometer-scale motions of the tectorial membrane (TM), organ of Corti structures (e.g. outer hair cells, pillar cells), and basilar membrane in the apical turn of the cochlea. Motion-magnified analysis reveals rotations about the inner pillar cells at nearly constant phase, whereas TM motion lags that of the underlying cells by as much as 0.1 radians. Our DOCM results demonstrate a new technique capable of concurrent high resolution anatomical imaging and nanometer-scale motion analysis of cellular and acellular structures in response to stapes stimulation, enabling investigations of relative cochlear motions and feedback mechanisms.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":12881,"journal":{"name":"Hearing Research","volume":"464 ","pages":"Article 109311"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2025-05-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144139060","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}