Interaural correlations in normal and traumatized cochleas: length and sensory cell loss

Sizable intraspecies variations have been found in both the length of the organ of Corti (OC) and the amount of damage resulting from exposure to a particular ototraumatic agent. These variations have made it difficult to address certain research questions such as the susceptibility of the previously injured ear to further damage. If intra-animal correlation is high, the variability problem could be circumvented by using the two ears from a given animal for different aspects of the same study. Therefore, correlation coefficients were calculated for OC length and for percentage of missing inner (IHCs) and outer hair cells (OHCs) in a large sample of chinchillas which included controls and animals which had been exposed to noise or treated with ionizing radiation. The correlation coefficients were +0.96 for OC length, +0.93 for IHC loss, and +0.97 for OHC loss.