Latest Stereocilia Stories

Finding may lead to better understanding of how body responds to mechanical stimuliScientists from The Scripps Research Institute have elucidated the action of a protein, harmonin, which is involved in the mechanics of hearing. This finding sheds new light on the workings of mechanotransduction, the process by which cells convert mechanical stimuli into electrical activity. Defects in mechanotransduction genes can cause devastating diseases, such as Usher's syndrome, which is characterized by...

Scientists thought they had a good model to explain how the inner ear translates vibrations in the air into sounds heard by the brain. Now, based on new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine, it looks like parts of the model are wrong.Anthony Ricci, PhD, associate professor of otolaryngology, and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin and the Pellegrin Hospital in France found that the ion channels responsible for hearing aren't located where scientists previously...

Study: Ears have tiny 'flexoelectric' motors to amplify sound Utah and Texas researchers have learned how quiet sounds are magnified by bundles of tiny, hair-like tubes atop "hair cells" in the ear: when the tubes dance back and forth, they act as "flexoelectric motors" that amplify sound mechanically."We are reporting discovery of a new nanoscale motor in the ear," says Richard Rabbitt, the study's principal author and a professor and chair of bioengineering at...