Cochlear Damage Changes the Distribution of Vesicular Glutamate Transporters Associated with Auditory and Nonauditory Inputs to the Cochlear Nucleus

• DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.0208-09.2009
• Publication Date: 2009-04-01T17:46:04Z
• Authors: Chunhua Zeng; Nishant Nannapaneni; Jianxun Zhou; Larry F. Hughes; Susan Shore
• Keywords: Cochlear nerve

Integration of multimodal information is essential for understanding complex environments. In the auditory system, multisensory integration first occurs in cochlear nucleus (CN), where nerve and somatosensory pathways converge (Shore, 2005). A unique feature neurons their propensity to receive cross-modal compensation after deafening. Based on our findings that vesicular glutamate transporters, VGLUT1 VGLUT2, are differentially associated with inputs CN, respectively (Zhou et al., 2007), we examined relative distributions unilateral After intracochlear injections kanamycin (1 2 weeks), immunoreactivity (ir) magnocellular CN ipsilateral damage was significantly decreased, whereas VGLUT2-ir regions nonauditory input increased weeks The pathway-specific amplification VGLUT2 expression suggests that, compensatory response deafening, influence enhanced. One undesirable consequence enhanced glutamatergic could be spontaneous rates occur hearing loss have been proposed as correlates phantom sensations commonly called tinnitus.