BACKGROUND Hearing impairment is the most common sensory impairment in humans, affecting 1:1,000 births. We have identified an ENU generated mouse mutant, Mozart, with recessively inherited, non-syndromic progressive hearing loss caused by a mutation in the synaptojanin 2 (Synj2), a central regulatory enzyme in the phosphoinositide-signaling cascade. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS The hearing...

In the literature of the past 30 years there are only some publications concerned with hair loss and hyperprolactinemia in women. Therefore, the relevance of hyperprolactinemia was evaluated in 40 women with diffuse alopecia.Hair loss was assessed by clinical appearance and the pluck trichogram. 82.5% of the female patients had diffuse hair loss and 17.5% had androgenetic alopecia.The highest p...

Case report. Ms A, a 40-year-old woman, had suffered from a first episode of moderate major depressive disorder (DSM-IV criteria). According to the clinical interview and to the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) questionnaire,1 she did not fulfill DSM-IV-TR criteria for any other Axis I or personality disorder. She was medically healthy and took no medications. The patient wa...

Hair serves as a social sign of gender, age, status, values, and group membership. Hair is a major part of one's self-identity, and central to one's feeling of personal attractiveness. Treating a patient with hair loss and/or hair issues is not easy because of psychosocial overtones and patients' distress and body image concerns. In this paper, several common hair diseases will be discussed in ...

In humans, most hearing loss results from death of hair cells, the mechanosensory receptors of the inner ear. Two goals of current hearing research are to protect hair cells from degeneration and to regenerate new hair cells, replacing those that are lost due to aging, disease, or environmental challenges. One limitation of research in the auditory field has been the relative inaccessibility of...

OBJECTIVES This study compared the efficacy of finasteride with placebo in the treatment of male pattern hair loss (androgenetic alopecia) in nine pairs of male identical twins. METHODS In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, single-center study, one twin from each identical twin pair received finasteride 1 mg/day for one year while the other received placebo. Hair growth was ev...

PURPOSE To report the dosimetric results and impact of volumetric arc therapy (VMAT) on temporary alopecia and hair-loss related quality of life (QOL) in whole brain radiotherapy (WBRT). METHODS The potential of VMAT-WBRT to reduce the dose to the hair follicles was assessed. A human cadaver was treated with both VMAT-WBRT and conventional opposed field (OF) WBRT, while the subcutaneously abs...

Loss of cochlear hair cells in mammals is currently believed to be permanent, resulting in hearing impairment that affects more than 10% of the population. Here, we developed two genetic strategies to ablate neonatal mouse cochlear hair cells in vivo. Both Pou4f3(DTR/+) and Atoh1-CreER™; ROSA26(DTA/+) alleles allowed selective and inducible hair cell ablation. After hair cell loss was induced a...

Androgenic alopecia (AGA), or pattern hair loss, is a common condition that affects both men and women has been gradually increasing. The discovery of the androgen receptor (AR) gene and related genes has expanded the knowledge on the genetics of hair loss. These basic science studies, combined with more recent clinical studies, have led to a better understanding of the pathogenesis of AGA in b...