Cross-species experiments reveal widespread cochlear neural damage in normal hearing

Abstract

Animal models suggest that cochlear afferent nerve endings may be more vulnerable than sensory hair cells to damage from acoustic overexposure and aging. Because neural degeneration without hair-cell loss cannot be detected in standard clinical audiometry, whether such damage occurs in humans is hotly debated. Here, we address this debate through co-ordinated experiments in at-risk humans and a wild-type chinchilla model. Cochlear neuropathy leads to large and sustained reductions of the wideband middle-ear muscle reflex in chinchillas. Analogously, human wideband reflex measures revealed distinct damage patterns in middle age, and in young individuals with histories of high acoustic exposure. Analysis of an independent large public dataset and additional measurements using clinical equipment corroborated the patterns revealed by our targeted cross-species experiments. Taken together, our results suggest that cochlear neural damage is widespread even in populations with clinically normal hearing.