Sentences with phrase «of hair cells»

Such regulations focus on preventing the destruction of hair cells in the inner ear, which causes a jump in someone's hearing threshold.

A possible fix arose in 2003, when researchers discovered that certain genes can transform the cells supporting the hair cells into both types of hair cell.

This group will have lost a large number of hair cells, but will still have supporting structures, such as neurons, present in the inner ear.

The team now plans to improve their gene - delivery technique in an attempt to reach an even greater proportion of hair cells.

Some childhood cancer survivors are also at risk because of hair cells damage due to certain chemotherapy agents.

By contrast, AAV alone reached a mere 20 percent of hair cells.

Even though experts know the condition is primarily due to the loss of hair cells in the inner ear (among other factors), they remain no closer to figuring out how to prevent it.

Atoh1, also known as Math1, makes a signalling molecule known to orchestrate the development of hair cells in embryos.

All of the functions of these cells are not known, but one role is to maintain high potassium concentrations in the fluid (endolymph) surrounding the hair cells of the cochlea; these pigment cells are critical for survival of the stria and the stria is critical for survival of the hair cells.

Zuo also saw regeneration of hair cells from supporting cells, but most of the new cells died within 2 weeks.

Jian Zuo, Ph.d., and his colleagues induced supporting cells located in the inner ear of adult mice to take on the appearance of immature hair cells and to begin producing some of the signature proteins of hair cells.

This, Maguire said, may be the reason why the bubble - wrapped form of AAV, or exo - AAV, binds more easily to the surfaces of hair cells and penetrates them more efficiently.

Previous approaches were only marginally effective as they reached one set of hair cells in the inner ear, but another subset — equally critical for hearing — remained largely impenetrable.

The pairing of the two delivered the breakthrough solution, the researchers said, as neurons responded to the molecule, regenerating synapses in mouse ear tissue that led to repair of the hair cells and neurons, which are essential to hearing.

Loss of hair cells causes permanent deafness, because these cells can not regenerate.

Studies of deafness often emphasize the role of hair cells, the sensory cells that transmit sound signals to the brain.

«The recovery of hair cells brought the treated ears to between 50 % and 80 % of their original hearing thresholds,» says Raphael.

Scientists aren't sure if the neurons are triggered by the death of hair cells (which detect normal level sound as part of hearing) or simply dangerous sound levels.

One of the implicated genes codes for a protein that may be involved in translating into neural signals the tremors of hair cells in the inner ear.

They might be therapeutic in different parts of hair cells traumatized by noise, the researchers reasoned.

Previous work from the Alagramam lab showed that clarin - 1 is essential for maintaining the structural integrity of the hair cells.

«I think of hair cells as neatly arranged mini-microphones in the inner ear that are sensitive to different frequencies of sound entering the ear,» said Alagramam.

Implants can work in place of the hair cells, but if the sensory neurons are damaged, hearing is still limited.

It was indeed a teratoma, a benign but messy jumble of hair cells, nerve tissue, and teeth.

The vestibular system, through the stimulus - response of the hair cells in the semicircular canals, reacts to angular acceleration and deceleration.

Blind cave fish are able to find their way around by relying on the lateral line, lines of hair cells on either side of their bodies that detect changes in water pressure caused by movement and water flowing around an object.

In lab dish experiments, exo - AAV successfully penetrated 50 - 60 percent of hair cells, the researchers observed.

Heller's team produced the inner - ear hair cells by exposing embryonic cells in the lab to chemical factors which steer the natural development of hair cells.

«To treat most forms of hearing loss, we need to find a delivery mechanism that works for all types of hair cells,» said neurobiologist David Corey, co-senior investigator on the study and the Bertarelli Professor of Translational Medical Science at HMS.

The current study identified a new role for a particular group of proteins, known as RFX transcription factors, in the development and survival of the hair cells.

When they examined the organ of Corti under the microscope, they saw that small numbers of hair cells had regenerated on their own.

By manipulating the same genes, Zuo and his colleagues induced supporting cells located in the inner ear of adult mice to take on the appearance of immature hair cells and to begin producing some of the signature proteins of hair cells.

Secondly, this is the first research to demonstrate that the loss of hair cells and hearing can be curtailed in USH3 mice by clarin - 1 gene therapy.

At the cellular level, consider the voltage-gated behavior of the sodium channels in a nerve axon or the «negative damping» of hair cells in the cochlea.

Post-treatment tests revealed that the gene entered between 30 and 70 percent of hair cells, reaching both inner and outer hair cells.

To see whether one of these genes, called Atoh1, could be used to improve hearing, last year Staecker and colleagues inserted it into a harmless virus and injected that into the cochlea of mice that had had almost all of their hair cells destroyed.

The researchers inserted the genes about a week before birth — after they could identify tissue that would become the inner ear and before the natural development of hair cells had begun.