Ear Popping

Our eardrum moves with changes in pressure transmitting a world of sound to our brain. But a loud noise, whack, or ear infection can pop it. They usually heal on their own, which is quite the feat as the eardrum is normally a taut membrane suspended across a canal, meaning cells repairing a hole must somehow bridge the gap without a ready-made surface to travel over. Perhaps not surprising then that one in five don’t heal without treatment. Using a mouse model to better understand why self-healing sometimes fails in humans, researchers have found the eardrum (pictured) has lots of nerve fibres bearing the protein Trpv1 (green). Mice with damaged eardrums that lacked Trpv1 had delayed and disrupted healing. Specifically, fewer immune cells called macrophages accumulated at the wound and new blood vessel growth was impaired. Targeting Trpv1 and recruiting immune cells may, therefore, help speed up healing in damaged eardrums.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Yunpei Zhang and colleagues
• Oregon Hearing Research Center, Department of Otolaryngology/Head & Neck Surgery, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife (reviewed preprint), May 2025