The sensory epithelium of the inner ear consists of a mosaic pattern of hair cells separated from one another by supporting cells. The Notch signalling pathway is thought to establish this pattern through a process of lateral inhibition, and has recently been shown to have an early role in inducing sensory patch formation. Several Notch ligands are expressed in the developing sensory patch, but...

Recent work suggests that the auditory organ of Drosophila may serve as an excellent model system for understanding the complex mechanical signal processing that takes place in sensory hair cells of the vertebrate inner ear.

A screen for protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) expressed in the chick inner ear yielded a high proportion of clones encoding an avian ortholog of protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor Q (Ptprq), a receptor-like PTP. Ptprq was first identified as a transcript upregulated in rat kidney in response to glomerular nephritis and has recently been shown to be active against inositol phospholipids. ...

Imp fan ta ble prostheses designed to deliver electrical stim u li directly to the auditory nerve hold considerable promise for people with a type * o f deafness in which the sensory hair cells of the inner ear are damaged

ÐThe ototoxic damage that drugs such as neomycin, kanamycin, colistin, cisplatin, transplatin and carboplatin cause on outer and inner hair cells in postnatal day 3 rat cochlear explants was investigated. Phalloidin± ̄uorescein conjugate-stained stereocilia bundles of sensory hair cells were quanti®ed by video image analysis as a measurement of ototoxic e€ect. The video image quanti®cation syste...

Spontaneous electrical activity of neurons in developing sensory systems promotes their maturation and proper connectivity. In the auditory system, spontaneous activity of cochlear inner hair cells (IHCs) is initiated by the release of ATP from glia-like inner supporting cells (ISCs), facilitating maturation of central pathways before hearing onset. Here, we find that ATP stimulates purinergic ...

The temporal representation of speechlike stimuli in the auditory-nerve output of a guinea pig cochlea model is described. The model consists of a bank of dual resonance nonlinear filters that simulate the vibratory response of the basilar membrane followed by a model of the inner hair cell/auditory nerve complex. The model is evaluated by comparing its output with published physiological audit...

We studied a family with hereditary sensory motor neuropathy and deafness accompanying a missense mutation in the MPZ gene. Pathological examination of the cochlea in one of the family members revealed marked loss of auditory ganglion cells and central and peripheral auditory nerve fibres within the cochlea. The inner hair cells were of normal number with preserved morphology. The outer hair ce...