[willstuder]

Not sure if this is the right subforum, but it seems that researchers are getting closer to a gene therapy solution for hearing loss. If it involves restoring all those fine frequencies we lose as we age, I would say shut up, take my money and give me that cocktail. I would love to hear something like 17,400 Hz again, like I did in my teens.

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/scientists-regenerate-hair-cells-enable-hearing

 

[castleofargh]

Yet another plan clearly concocted by mice (smartest creatures on planet earth, dolphins being second). Make humans develop all those cures for them, even though most of the time the approach doesn't proceed to be applicable to humans.

 

[gregorio]

“the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories at Mass Eye and Ear, reported creating a drug-like cocktail of different molecules that successfully regenerated hair cells in a mouse model by reprogramming a series of genetic pathways within the inner ear.”

Why did they give it to a mouse model, wouldn’t it have been more useful to a mouse mastering engineer?

G

 

[bigshot]

Even the mouse's wife can hear a difference!

 

[LoryWiv]

Not sure if this is the right subforum, but it seems that researchers are getting closer to a gene therapy solution for hearing loss. If it involves restoring all those fine frequencies we lose as we age, I would say shut up, take my money and give me that cocktail. I would love to hear something like 17,400 Hz again, like I did in my teens.

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/scientists-regenerate-hair-cells-enable-hearing

Another cure for hair loss? I know, I know, just couldn't resist. I wonder if restoring lost frequencies would improve my tinnitus as well, on the view that tinnitus is one's brain "filling the void" when hearing loss occurs. One can dream!

 

[benhatchins]

That is insane. Can they do something to reverse hearing loss then? As a veteran, I received my aids from the VA, and quite frankly, I don’t know how I survived without them. Over the counter aids sound great, but even at $899 a pair, that could price a lot of people out of the market. Here’s hoping that insurance companies take a harder look at providing some level of hearing aid coverage. I know many people buy hearing aids online and that is a little cheaper than in actual shops, still consider prices to be kinda high.

 

[KinGensai]

I doubt this will come to fruition without complications. Gene therapies run into auto-immune issues invariably. This isn't my area of study so I might be wrong, but AFAIK the mechanism by which phagocytes in the immune system determine and remove "damaged" cells is yet to be understood, so simply changing the DNA will result in T-cells attacking the affected cells.

I wouldn't hold my breath on this one, seems to me this problem is going to require a discovery that will shake the foundations of microbiology to the point of invalidating many of the medical practices we currently employ against things like viral infection and cancer.

 

[The Jester]

“the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories at Mass Eye and Ear, reported creating a drug-like cocktail of different molecules that successfully regenerated hair cells in a mouse model by reprogramming a series of genetic pathways within the inner ear.”

Why did they give it to a mouse model, wouldn’t it have been more useful to a mouse mastering engineer?

G

Maybe thinking about the publicity photos … model would look way better with Lippy, Heels and fishnets ? …
Unles you have some photos that would prove otherwise …

 

[gregorio]

Maybe thinking about the publicity photos …

Yep, it always comes down to marketing.

model would look way better with Lippy, Heels and fishnets ? …

I’m sure that’s true. I can’t (and quite frankly don’t want to) imagine what most mastering engineers would look like with “lippy, heels and fishnets”!

G

 

[Hadouk]

Crazy cool!

 

[psy472]

This is the age of genetic medicines. We now have the cure for muscular dystrophy with gene therapy and it’s even FDA approved for use. But like all new medicine, it’s going to costs a ton of money and need at least 10 years worth of data to be sure about risks and benefits. Maybe that medicine could make us have bat or dog level of hearing. Would music and audio gear change to accommodate the new hearing range?

 

[gregorio]

This is the age of genetic medicines.

Only to a very limited extent. Genetic medicine is currently only really a single gene therapy rather than a full genetic medicine and therefore:

Maybe that medicine could make us have bat or dog level of hearing.

Not in the foreseeable future because that would require a vast array of genes to be modified, genes controlling the physiology of almost all aspects of the ears, the aural nerves and the parts of the brain (auditory cortex, etc.) which process that data. So the level of genetic modification required could be great enough to classify the result as a new/different species! Not to mention, why would we want the level of hearing of a bat or dog any way? Sure, we would gain a much higher frequency response but we’d loose some of the low frequency response plus a significant amount of the ability to mentally deconstruct, identify and appreciate the components of complex waveforms. Human hearing/perception isn’t as sensitive as some animals and doesn’t have the range, or the HF or LF response of some other animals but (to the limit of current research) it appears to be superior or vastly superior to all other animals in terms of it’s ability to mentally dissect and identify what it’s “hearing”.

Would music and audio gear change to accommodate the new hearing range?

The transducers would have to change somewhat, to capture or reproduce much higher freqs and they wouldn’t need to reproduce the much lower freqs (there wouldn’t be much need of sub-woofers) but mostly there would be little/no difference in the audio gear. The music and musical instruments would have to change quite dramatically though. Much/Most of the learned biases that enable us to appreciate tonality, harmonic and melodic progression, structure and resolution would probably disappear and most of our existing music would therefore probably sound more like a sequence of rhythmic, band-limited noises than “music”. In addition, language would have to change considerably, all languages, but especially languages like Chinese that are heavily reliant on relatively subtle differences in intonation.

G

 

[KinGensai]

This is the age of genetic medicines. We now have the cure for muscular dystrophy with gene therapy and it’s even FDA approved for use. But like all new medicine, it’s going to costs a ton of money and need at least 10 years worth of data to be sure about risks and benefits. Maybe that medicine could make us have bat or dog level of hearing. Would music and audio gear change to accommodate the new hearing range?

I would curb your enthusiasm by saying genetic research has only opened a pandora's box concerning what actually dictates how organisms work and what really determines how the body constructs and maintains itself. We are barely beginning to understand how epigenetics works, let alone by what mechanism the immune system determines what is "correct" and what isn't. It's not genes, far less sophisticated organisms have as many or more genes as humans, and the human genome couldn't possibly contain all the pertinent information.

There is still a gigantic body of science yet to be done. Cybernetics is far more likely to bare fruit sooner.

 

[psy472]

I saw that the DoD was funding that research so I figure they are probably interested in enhanced hearing as well. But yes, genetic treatment is an entire pandora box. Many things can go wrong. Only time will tell.

 

[willstuder]

Very interesting in that respect too: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/child...estored-gene-therapy-study/story?id=106641428