AKT1 and presbycusis: However, our laboratory and other groups have shown that PI3K/Akt signaling pathways are involved in several forms of acquired hearing loss, including aminoglycoside-induced ototoxicity (Chung et al., 2006; Jiang et al., 2006), age-related hearing impairment (Sha et al., 2010), noise trauma (Chen et al., 2015), and other inner ear insults (Haake et al., 2009).