Table 1.

CBA/J mice from Jackson laboratory arrived at MUSC at the age of 6 weeks. Baseline auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) were measured at the age of 7 weeks. At the age of 8 weeks, mice were exposed to octave band noise (OBN) at 100 dB for 2 h. Two weeks after the noise exposure (10 weeks), mice were euthanized for surface preparations for hair cell counts (left ear) and ribbon counts (right ear) after final ABR measurements. For immunohistochemistry, mice were euthanized 1 h or 24 h after the completion of noise exposure. For the experiments to evaluate molecular signaling by immunolabeling, pharmaceutical compounds NAC and forskolin were injected via intraperitoneal (IP) route 24 h and 1 h before, and immediately after the noise exposure. For experiments to observe the progress of auditory threshold shifts, mice received one additional IP injection of the pharmaceutical compounds.