Besides its fast excitatory properties, glutamate is known to have neurotoxic properties when released in large amounts or when incompletely recycled. This so-called excitotoxicity is involved in a number of acute and/or degenerative forms of neuropathology such as epilepsy, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, stroke, and retinal ischemia. In the cochlea, excitotoxicity may occur in two pathological conditions: anoxia and noise trauma. It is characterized by a two-step mechanism: (1) An acute swelling, which primarily depends on the AMPA/kainate type of receptors, together with a disruption of the postsynaptic structures (type I afferent dendrites) resulting in a loss of function. Within the next 5 days, synaptic repair may be observed with a full or a partial (acoustic trauma) recovery of cochlear potentials. (2) The second phase of excitotoxicity, which may develop after strong and/or repetitive injury, consists of a cascade of metabolic events triggered by the entry of Ca2+, which leads to neuronal death in the spiral ganglion. Ongoing experiments in animals, tracking the molecular basis of both these processes, presages the development of new pharmacological strategies to help neurites to regrow and reconnect properly to the IHCs, and to prevent or delay neuronal death in the spiral ganglion. Human applications should follow, and a local (transtympanic) strategy against cochlear excitotoxicity may, in the near future, prove to be helpful in ischemic- or noise-induced sudden deafness, as well as in the related tinnitus.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 15. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 31 October 2025.
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#10,146
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Outputs of similar age from Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
#157
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Altmetric has tracked 31,978,644 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 90th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 13,764 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 8.9. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 91% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 2,678 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
