Lead neurotoxicity in rat cochlear organotypic cultures

Lead is a major environmental toxicant throughout the world. Lead can induce severe neurotoxicity including irreversible hearing impairment. Many in vivo studies have shown that lead damages the auditory nervous system, but has little or no effect on cochlear sensory hair cells. To gain insights on lead ototoxic and neurotoxic effects in vitro, lead acetate (LA) was applied to postnatal day 3–4 rat cochlear organotypic cultures for 24 or 72 h with doses of 0.1, 0.5,1, 2 or 4 mM. After 24 or 72 h treatment with lead acetate, nearly all of cochlear sensory hair cells were intact. However, after 72 h treatment, the peripheral auditory nerve fibers projecting to the hair cells and the spiral ganglion neurons (SGN) were damaged when lead concentration exceeded 2 mM. Our results indicated that 72 h treatment with only the high doses (> 2 mM) of lead actate damaged SGNs and peripheral nerve fibers; hair cells remained structurally intact even after 4 mM treatment. These results show that lead primarily damages cochlear nerve fibers andSGNratherthanhaircells.