Hearing Triggered by Molecular Gating ‘Spring’
Researchers have discovered the long-sought gating spring responsible for opening ion channels in sensory hair cells, essential for hearing.
Tag: hair cells
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Researchers Find Master Gene Programming Hair Cells
Hearing loss due to aging, noise, and certain cancer therapy drugs and antibiotics has been irreversible because scientists have not been able to reprogram existing cells to develop into the outer and inner ear sensory cells — essential for hearing — once they die. But Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered a single master gene that programs ear hair cells into either outer or inner ones, overcoming a major hurdle that had prevented the development of these cells to restore hearing, according to new research published in “Nature.”
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Researchers Create Inner Ear Sound Frequency Map
Researchers at Uppsala University have created the “first 3D map of the hearing nerve showing where the various sound frequencies are captured,” according to an article on the university's website. Using what is known as synchrotron X-ray imaging, they were able to trace the fine nerve threads and the vibrating auditory organ, the cochlea, and find out exactly how the frequencies of incoming sound are distributed.
USC Researchers Produce Sensory Hearing Cells
To achieve reprogramming, the scientists exposed fibroblasts and supporting cells to a cocktail of four transcription factors, which are molecules that help convey the instructions encoded in DNA. The scientists identified this cocktail by testing various combinations of 16 transcription factors that were highly active in the hair cells of newborn mice.
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Harvard Researchers Restore Partial Hearing in Mice with Recessive Mutation for Deafness
To hear, animals rely on hair cells in the inner ear, which bend under the pressure of sound waves and send electrical impulses to the brain. The recessive mutation to TMC1 that Liu and Yeh hoped to correct caused rapid deterioration of those hair cells, leading to profound deafness at just 4 weeks of age.
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‘Chemical Earmuffs’ Developed by Researchers Could Prevent Hearing Loss
Once you start to lose your hearing, you can’t get it back. But what if you could prevent...
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‘Popular Science’ Article Explores Causes of Hidden Hearing Loss
In a magazine article published in Popular Science, author Sarah Scoles spoke with several...
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Researchers Study Link Between Hair Cells and Genetic Factors in Zebrafish
Using zebrafish as a proxy, scientists have shed light on how changes to specific genes alter the coordinated direction that these cells are laid out.
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Frequency Therapeutics Announces Hearing Loss Drug Has FDA Fast-Track Designation
In a Phase 1/2 study, FX-322 demonstrated a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in key measures of hearing loss, including clarity of sound and word recognition, with no serious adverse events observed.
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Purdue Researchers Find Noise-induced Trauma May Have Greater Impact on Hearing Loss
The researchers found that noise trauma causes substantially greater changes in neural processing of complex sounds compared with age-related metabolic loss, potentially explaining large differences in speech perception commonly seen between people with the same clinically defined degree of hearing loss based on an audiogram.
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Malaria Drug Could Help Prevent Form of Hereditary Hearing Loss
Using a zebrafish model, researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have found that artemisinin, an anti-malarial drug, may help treat forms of hereditary hearing and vision loss associated with clarin1 mutations like Usher syndrome.
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Malaria Drug Could Help Prevent Form of Hereditary Hearing Loss
Using a zebrafish model, researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine have found that artemisinin, an anti-malarial drug, may help treat forms of hereditary hearing and vision loss associated with clarin1 mutations like Usher syndrome.
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Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press Releases ‘Function and Dysfunction of the Cochlea’
The book describes major advances in our understanding of the pathogenic processes underlying various forms of hearing loss and the emergence of treatments for deafness.
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Robert Fettiplace Named 2019 Passano Fellow for Hearing Research
Fettiplace, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health (UW SMPH), won the award for showing how cochlear hair cells sense the tiny mechanical vibrations that sound produces in the inner ear.
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Young Cancer Survivors with Severe Hearing Loss Experience Difficulties Learning to Read, Study Shows
After accounting for the risk factors of age at diagnosis and treatment intensity, the analysis suggested that survivors with severe hearing loss struggled the most with slowed processing speed and phonological skills.
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Researchers Identify 38 New Mouse Genes Related to Hearing Loss
To identify new molecules involved in hearing loss, the researchers took a genetic approach and created 1,211 new mouse mutants. They screened each of these mice using a sensitive electrophysiological test, the auditory brainstem response, to find out how good their hearing was.
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UVA Researchers Find Potential Contributor to Age-related Hearing Loss
The auditory receptors of the inner ear, called hair cells, pick up sounds using a vibration-sensing antenna called the hair bundle. While much research into hearing loss has focused on the hair bundle, UVA’s discovery spotlights the foundations those antennas stand on.
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Inner Ear Protein Mechanism for Sound Wave Conversion Identified
The researcher’s new work reveals the identity and mechanism of a finely-tuned spring they believe is responsible for converting the deflection of hair cells into a force capable of opening ion channels.
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