1. Review the patterns of hearing loss in hereditary hearing impairment. AL First, we must understand that genetic hearing loss seems to breach all categories of hearing loss, including the following: congenital, progressive, and adult onset; conductive, sensory, and neural; syndromic and nonsyndromic; high-frequency, low-frequency, or mixed frequency; and mild or profound. Genetic hearing loss...

BACKGROUND Gene therapy is a potentially effective therapeutic modality for treating sensorineural hearing loss. Nonviral gene delivery vectors are expected to become extremely safe and convenient, and nanoparticles are the most promising types of vectors. However, infrequent nuclear localization in the cochlear cells limits their application for gene therapy. This study aimed to investigate th...

A/J and C57BL/6 J (B6) mice share a mutation in Cdh23 (ahl allele) and are characterized by age-related hearing loss. However, hearing loss occurs much earlier in A/J mice at about four weeks of age. Recent study has revealed that a mutation in citrate synthase (Cs) is one of the main contributors, but the mechanism is largely unknown. In the present study, we showed that A/J mice displayed mor...

On the circular curve, lateral acceleration affects comfort. On the spiral, both lateral acceleration and jerk affect comfort.  The determination of maximum curving speed on the basis of lateral acceleration only is not critical because the lateral acceleration is proportional to the square of speed whereas jerk is proportional to cubic power of speed. The maximum speed on a curve is thus signi...

BACKGROUND Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) displayed strong activities in anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal studies and were reportedly efficient in treating otitis media. Information on distribution of AgNPs in different compartments of the ear is lacking. OBJECTIVE To detect distribution of Ag NPs in the middle and inner ear and transportation pathways after transtympanic injection....

background: x-ray computed tomography (ct) examinations deliver a significant amount of radiation doses to patients comparing to conventional radiography examinations. the objective of the current study was to analyze and investigate the average patient received dose from axial and spiral ct exams in a medical imaging center. material and methods: in this study, the patient imaging technique, w...

Mice with targeted disruption of the TGFb2 gene display defects in epithelial-mesenchymal tissue interactions in several tissues including the developing cochlea. Specifically, the region of the spiral limbus and the overlying interdental cells, structures putatively involved in endolymphatic fluid homeostasis, display morphogenetic abnormalities. These findings prompted us to explore the pre-n...

The inner ear was previously assumed to be an "immune-privileged" organ due to the existence of its tight junction-based blood-labyrinth barrier. However, studies performed during the past decade revealed that the mesenchymal region of the cochlea, including its lateral wall, is a common site of inflammation. Neutrophils do not enter this region, which is consistent with the old dogma; however,...

N-ethyl-N-nitrosourea (ENU)-induced mutagenesis is an important approach in the study of gene function and the establishment of human disease models. Here we report an ENU-induced mutation, Elfin, as a mouse model with hearing loss. Homozygous mutants were deaf and displayed severe ataxia, while heterozygous mice had a significant hearing loss. Histological analysis of the inner ear revealed th...

Bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (BMSCs) expressing recombinant IL-4 have the potential to remediate inflammatory diseases. We thus investigated whether BMSCs expressing exogenous IL-4 could alleviate autoimmune sensorineural hearing loss. BMSCs isolated from guinea pigs were transfected with recombinant lentivirus expressing IL-4. A total of 33 animals were divided into three groups. Group A...