If your ears aren't working very well when you come out of a rock concert, don't panic. Your body is just trying to protect your hearing. (click below to read more)
That's the finding of a new paper focused on the role of ATP, a hormone secreted by the inner ear. The paper says mice lacking a receptor for the hormone had no temporary loss of hearing sensitivity during sustained exposure to loud noise—but were much more likely to suffer permanent hearing loss from such noise than were mice with ATP receptors.
Although ATP has a short-run protective effect, that doesn't mean prolonged exposure to very loud noise isn't dangerous. On the contrary, frequent exposure to such noise in the long run can wipe out high-frequency hearing, the researchers said.
"ATP-gated Ion Channels Mediate Adaptation To Elevated Sound Levels," Gary D. Housley and 14 other authors, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
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