Anatomical and Functional Consequences of Microneedle Perforation of Round Window Membrane
Bibliographic record
Abstract
HYPOTHESIS: Microneedles can create microperforations in the round window membrane (RWM) without causing anatomic or physiologic damage. BACKGROUND: Reliable delivery of agents into the inner ear for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes remains a challenge. Our novel approach employs microneedles to facilitate intracochlear access via the RWM. This study investigates the anatomical and functional consequences of microneedle perforations in guinea pig RWMs in vivo. METHODS: Single three-dimensional-printed, 100 μm diameter microneedles were used to perforate the guinea pig RWM via the postauricular sulcus. Hearing was assessed both before and after microneedle perforation using compound action potential and distortion product otoacoustic emissions. Confocal microscopy was used ex vivo to examine harvested RWMs, measuring the size, shape, and location of perforations and documenting healing at 0 hours (n = 7), 24 hours (n = 6), 48 hours (n = 6), and 1 week (n = 6). RESULTS: Microneedles create precise and accurate perforations measuring 93.1 ± 29.0 μm by 34.5 ± 16.8 μm and produce a high-frequency threshold shift that disappears after 24 hours. Examination of perforations over time demonstrates healing progression over 24 to 48 hours and complete perforation closure by 1 week. CONCLUSION: Microneedles can create a temporary microperforation in the RWM without causing significant anatomic or physiologic dysfunction. Microneedles have the potential to mediate safe and effective intracochlear access for diagnosis and treatment of inner ear disease.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".