Cochlear vessel permeability to horseradish peroxidase in the normal and acoustically traumatized chinchilla: a reevaluation.

A method involving incubation of intact cochleae using the small protein, horseradish peroxidase, has revealed that a barrier exists between the blood and the stria vascularis. This barrier is more tenuous than the barrier that exists across other cochlear vessels. The stria-strial vessel barrier can be altered physiologically by acoustic trauma or artifactually by dissection.