Sensorineural hearing damage occurs when the hair cells which transduce mechanical input to electrical become damaged in the cochlea. Current drug therapies, whilst being promising in their ability to heal these cells, are limited by the inability to reliably administer them to their target sites.
This work looks at the phenomenon of steady streaming, a non-zero net motion in a fluctuating flow with non-conservative body forces, and investigates whether or not it is possible to harness the effect in order to deliver and potentially even specifically target damaged hair cells in the cochlea. Using the WKB model for the basilar membrane waves alongside experimental data to a create computational fluid dynamic simulation of the guinea pig cochlea, particle tracking was undertaken in order to find individual particle trajectories in the flows under pure tone, pitch change and multiple pitch stimulation. The steady streaming velocities and relative efficacy of the different stimuli were then determined and multiple frequency stimulation found to be superior as a method of drug transportation due to the setup of a so-called `streaming channel' along which particles flow.Open Acces
