We don’t want to get all the frequent concertgoers out there too excited because the research isn’t settled on this, but it looks like scientists in the UK may have found a cure for deafness caused by exposure to loud noise, infection and toxic drugs.

Up until recently it has been assumed that restoring the sensory hair cells responsible for hearing is impossible, making many types of deafness incurable. However, a new drug has demonstrated the ability to regenerate those sensory hair cells in mice that have been by deafened by loud noise.

The effects of the drug—codenamed LY411575—were described in the neuroscience journal Neuron, and scientists have suggested that similar hearing restoration may be possible in humans.

Though more research is still needed for any conclusions to be drawn, the discovery that mammalian sensory hair cells can be regenerated is a big first step toward finding a cure for various forms of hearing loss. Nevertheless, there are still plenty of potential side effects and unintended consequences that need to be looked into before anyone starts prescribing this drug to humans.