Cochlear hair cells vs. vestibular hair cells

[Tom Boismier]

In article <Pine.SOL.3.91.960806155758.17476A-100000 at rigel.oac.uci.edu>, 
nprakash at rigel.oac.uci.edu says...
>
>Why is that loud sounds cause cochlear hair cells to degenerate, whereas 
>violent motions (rollercoasters, star tours, etc.) don't cause equivalent 
>vestibular damage?

Who says they don't? It's well known that vestibular function decreases with 
age, and that the otoliths degenerate with age and injury. If your looking for 
a close temporal relationship like explosion->hearing loss, we may not see 
that with acceloration if the kind of accelorations needed to kill vestibular 
hair cells are high enough to kill you... I'm not aware of any research in 
that specific topic, thoigh there is lots of work going on in hair cell 
regeneration.