Conflicting Electrophysiological and Anatomical Data from Drug-Impaired Guinea Pig Cochleas

Abstract

In guinea pigs that had been treated with very large doses of the aminoglycoside amikacin (14 x 450 mg/kg/day, i.m.) clear, short-latency responses to various click stimuli could be recorded at the round window. When the same cochleas were examined histologically, no outer or inner hair cells could be found along the entire length of the basilar membrane, save for a very few outer hair cells remaining at the apex. The response patterns resembled that of the compound action potential, and various characteristics suggest that they were of neural origin. Vestibular function, investigated by electronystagmography during rotation, appeared normal, as did most of the saccular and utricular hair cells. Transmission electron microscopy revealed a significant number of cochlear nerve fibres still innervating the remnants of Corti's organ. In other cochleas with similarly extensive destruction induced by another aminoglycoside (sisomycin, 14 x 125 mg/kg/day, 15 days as well as 3 months post-Rx), no responses could be recorded from the round window. Cochleas that were less affected, with the upper turns preserved, gave only small, long-latency responses. These preliminary observations are confirmed by further experiments now in progress. They suggest that unless a considerable number of inner hair cells remained undetected in the lower basal turn, a possibility that appears highly unlikely, there was either a direct mechanical excitation of cochlear nerve fibres, or an acoustical stimulation of vestibular sense organs.