For more than four decades, hearing in frogs has been an important source of information for those interested in auditory neuroscience, neuroethology and the evolution of hearing. Individual features of the frog auditory system can be found represented in one or many of the other vertebrate classes, but collectively the frog inner ear represents a cornucopia of evolutionary experiments in acous...

BACKGROUND Auditory hair cells spontaneously regenerate following injury in birds but not mammals. A better understanding of the molecular events underlying hair cell regeneration in birds may allow for identification and eventually manipulation of relevant pathways in mammals to stimulate regeneration and restore hearing in deaf patients. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Gene expression was pr...

The LKB1 gene, which encodes a serine/threonine kinase, was discovered to play crucial roles in cell differentiation, proliferation, and the establishment of cell polarity. In our study, LKB1 conditional knockout mice (Atoh1-LKB1-/- mice) were generated to investigate LKB1 function in the inner ear. Tests of auditory brainstem response and distortion product otoacoustic emissions revealed signi...

In many psychoacoustical tasks, hearing-impaired subjects display abnormal audiograms and poor understanding of speech compared to normal listeners. Existing models that ex‐ plain the performance of the hearing impaired indicate that possible sources for cochlear hearing loss may be the dysfunction of the outer and inner hair cells. In this study, a model of the auditory system is introduced. I...

The kinase Akt is a key downstream mediator of the phosphoinositide-3-kinase signaling pathway and participates in a variety of cellular processes. Akt comprises three isoforms each encoded by a separate gene. There is evidence to indicate that Akt is involved in the survival and protection of auditory hair cells in vitro. However, little is known about the physiological role of Akt in the inne...

Sensorineural hearing loss affects the quality of life and communication of millions of people, but the underlying molecular mechanisms remain elusive. Here, we identify mutations in Gipc3 underlying progressive sensorineural hearing loss (age-related hearing loss 5, ahl5) and audiogenic seizures (juvenile audiogenic monogenic seizure 1, jams1) in mice and autosomal recessive deafness DFNB15 an...

Amplification of auditory stimuli by hair cells augments the sensitivity of the vertebrate inner ear. Cell-body contractions of outer hair cells are thought to mediate amplification in the mammalian cochlea. In vertebrates that lack these cells, and perhaps in mammals as well, active movements of hair bundles may underlie amplification. We have evaluated a mathematical model in which amplificat...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect of timing of dexamethasone administration on auditory hair cell survival following an ototoxic insult with kanamycin and furosemide. STUDY DESIGN Controlled experimental study. SETTING Translational science experimental laboratory. METHODS 5-6 week old CBA/CaJ mice, divided into 6 groups, were injected with kanamycin (1 mg/g SC) followed by furosemide (...

Gap junctional intercellular communication (GJIC) plays a major role in cochlear function. Recent evidence suggests that connexin 26 (Cx26) and Cx30 are the major constituent proteins of cochlear gap junction channels, possibly in a unique heteromeric configuration. We investigated the functional and structural properties of native cochlear gap junctions in rats, from birth to the onset of hear...

The inner hair cells in the cochlea perform the crucial task of transforming mechanical sound signals into electrical activity. The cochlear nerve ®bers code this information and convey it to the brain for further processing. This study investigates the performance of the system inner hair cell ± primary auditory a€erent nerve ®bers at the physical limit of the mechano-electrical transduction f...