Mice plunged into darkness for a week saw their hearing improve. The experiment, carried out by two American researchers, is conclusive but the effects are temporary.
It is a commonplace that when someone is deprived of one of their senses since childhood, their other senses are multiplied tenfold. There are some famous examples. Musicians Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder have developed a very sensitive ear to music, in part due to their blindness. The hero of comics, Dardevil, illustrates this commonplace. He is blind and with the help of his other senses he can move around and fight crime. He is a fictional character but he characterizes a question that science is trying to answer. Is it really possible to multiply one of your senses by depriving yourself of another?
Blind for a week, their hearing improves
Hey-Kyong Lee, a neuroscientist at John Hopkins University, has teamed up with biologist Patrick Kanold to study the relationship between vision and hearing in the brain. To do this, they placed mice in a dark environment to record their brain’s reaction to certain sounds. The results are astounding: the researchers found that by limiting the sight of these mice, their hearing greatly improved. By monitoring their brain activity, they observed that the mice were able to pick up sounds that were very difficult to pick up normally. These results show that by depriving yourself of your sight, it is therefore possible to improve your hearing.
This phenomenon is explained by a circuit change in the brain of mice. That is to say that their brain will take other paths and no longer go through the area in charge of sight. Instead, brain activity increases in the primary sound cortex, the part of the brain responsible for high-pitched and low-pitched sounds.
We are far from an application on men
Being only at the beginning of his research on the subject, Patrick Kanold recognizes that “we do not know how many days a human will have to remain in the dark to obtain this effect, and if they will want to do it”. Staying in the dark for too long can be unpleasant or even dangerous. Some people who stay too long in pitch black can have very severe hallucinations. The two scientists believe they can create shorter sessions and avoid this problem.
For now, these effects are temporary. Indeed, the mice recover normal hearing after a few weeks in a lighted environment. Over the next five years, the two scientists will be looking for a way to make this hearing change permanent. If a solution is found, this study could revolutionize the lives of thousands of people with hearing problems. However, this research will not allow deaf people to regain hearing.
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