Primary Neural Degeneration in Noise-Exposed Human Cochleas: Correlations with Outer Hair Cell Loss and Word-Discrimination Scores

Animal studies suggest that cochlear nerve degeneration precedes sensory cell degeneration in both noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) and age-related hearing loss (ARHL), producing a hearing impairment that is not reflected in audiometric thresholds. Here, we investigated the histopathology of human ARHL and NIHL by comparing loss of auditory nerve fibers (ANFs), cochlear hair cells and the stria vascularis in a group of 52 cases with noise-exposure history against an age-matched control group. Although strial atrophy increased with age, there was no effect of noise history. Outer hair cell (OHC) loss also increased with age throughout the cochlea but was unaffected by noise history in the low-frequency region (