The mechanosensitive hair cells in the inner ear, or cochlea, are vulnerable to overstimulation, which can cause damage to the cells and sensorineural hearing loss. Pharmacological treatments to prevent hair cell damage or to restore the cells’ function after impairment are currently being developed. However, transporting the drugs to the hair cells has remained a major problem because the function of the cells relies on the intact encasing in the hard temporal bone. Here we show that steady streaming, a physical phenomenon that accompanies propagating waves, can be employed to transprt drugs from an entry point near the middle ear to the hair cells inside the cochlea.
L. Sumner, J. Mestel, T. Reichenbach
Steady Streaming as a method for drug delivery to the inner ear,
Scientific Reports (2021) 11:57. [pdf]