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In Situ 3D-Imaging of the Inner Ear Synapses with a Cochlear Implant

In recent years sensorineural hearing loss was found to affect not exclusively, nor at first, the sensory cells of the inner ear. The sensory cells’ synapses and subsequent neurites are initially damaged. Auditory synaptopathies also play an important role in cochlear implant (CI) care, as they can...

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Autores principales: Malfeld, Kathrin, Armbrecht, Nina, Volk, Holger A., Lenarz, Thomas, Scheper, Verena
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8066088/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33915846
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life11040301
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author Malfeld, Kathrin
Armbrecht, Nina
Volk, Holger A.
Lenarz, Thomas
Scheper, Verena
author_facet Malfeld, Kathrin
Armbrecht, Nina
Volk, Holger A.
Lenarz, Thomas
Scheper, Verena
author_sort Malfeld, Kathrin
collection PubMed
description In recent years sensorineural hearing loss was found to affect not exclusively, nor at first, the sensory cells of the inner ear. The sensory cells’ synapses and subsequent neurites are initially damaged. Auditory synaptopathies also play an important role in cochlear implant (CI) care, as they can lead to a loss of physiological hearing in patients with residual hearing. These auditory synaptopathies and in general the cascades of hearing pathologies have been in the focus of research in recent years with the aim to develop more targeted and individually tailored therapeutics. In the current study, a method to examine implanted inner ears of guinea pigs was developed to examine the synapse level. For this purpose, the cochlea is made transparent and scanned with the implant in situ using confocal laser scanning microscopy. Three different preparation methods were compared to enable both an overview image of the cochlea for assessing the CI position and images of the synapses on the same specimen. The best results were achieved by dissection of the bony capsule of the cochlea.
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spelling pubmed-80660882021-04-25 In Situ 3D-Imaging of the Inner Ear Synapses with a Cochlear Implant Malfeld, Kathrin Armbrecht, Nina Volk, Holger A. Lenarz, Thomas Scheper, Verena Life (Basel) Article In recent years sensorineural hearing loss was found to affect not exclusively, nor at first, the sensory cells of the inner ear. The sensory cells’ synapses and subsequent neurites are initially damaged. Auditory synaptopathies also play an important role in cochlear implant (CI) care, as they can lead to a loss of physiological hearing in patients with residual hearing. These auditory synaptopathies and in general the cascades of hearing pathologies have been in the focus of research in recent years with the aim to develop more targeted and individually tailored therapeutics. In the current study, a method to examine implanted inner ears of guinea pigs was developed to examine the synapse level. For this purpose, the cochlea is made transparent and scanned with the implant in situ using confocal laser scanning microscopy. Three different preparation methods were compared to enable both an overview image of the cochlea for assessing the CI position and images of the synapses on the same specimen. The best results were achieved by dissection of the bony capsule of the cochlea. MDPI 2021-04-01 /pmc/articles/PMC8066088/ /pubmed/33915846 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life11040301 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Malfeld, Kathrin
Armbrecht, Nina
Volk, Holger A.
Lenarz, Thomas
Scheper, Verena
In Situ 3D-Imaging of the Inner Ear Synapses with a Cochlear Implant
title In Situ 3D-Imaging of the Inner Ear Synapses with a Cochlear Implant
title_full In Situ 3D-Imaging of the Inner Ear Synapses with a Cochlear Implant
title_fullStr In Situ 3D-Imaging of the Inner Ear Synapses with a Cochlear Implant
title_full_unstemmed In Situ 3D-Imaging of the Inner Ear Synapses with a Cochlear Implant
title_short In Situ 3D-Imaging of the Inner Ear Synapses with a Cochlear Implant
title_sort in situ 3d-imaging of the inner ear synapses with a cochlear implant
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8066088/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33915846
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life11040301
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