Hypothyroidism prevents developmental neuronal loss during auditory organ development.

The deficit of thyroid hormone leads to several structural and physiological modifications in the auditory receptor: the outer hair cells present an immature morphology, abnormal persistence of the afferent dendrites and incomplete development of the efferent terminals. The aim of this work was to perform a quantitative and morphometric study of the spiral ganglion neurons in control and hypothyroid animals. The cochleae from both experimental groups were processed in order to obtain plastic sections. In control animals the size of the neurons increased throughout development and was larger in the basal than in the apical portion of the cochlea. In hypothyroid animals, the cell death that takes place normally during development did not occur, and there was no differentiation into types I and II neurons. The size of the neurons also increased with development in treated animals, but they were smaller than in control animals, and in this case the neurons in the apex were larger than in the base. This study shows that hypothyroidism alters the normal development of the spiral ganglion neurons.