title: Protecting the Inner Ear from Acoustic Trauma.
abstract: Calcium activated proteases, or calpains, play an important role in neurodegeneration. In some cases, neural degeneration can be significantly reduced by leupeptin, a potent calpain inhibitor. To determine if leupeptin could protect against noise-induced hearing loss and hair cell loss, we infused leupeptin into scala tympani of one cochlea before, during and after a 14-day exposure to a 100 dB SPL, octave band noise centered at 4.0 kHz. Hearing loss, assessed with the auditory evoked response, was less in the leupeptin-treated ear than in the control ear during the early stage of recovery from acoustic trauma. In addition, hair cell loss in the leupeptin-treated ear was significantly less than in the control ear. These preliminary results suggest that leupeptin may protect against noise-induced hearing loss.
authors.affiliation: Hearing Research Lab, SUNY University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14214.
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Salvi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shulman
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Stracher
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang