gerbil
dr. dolittle | September 18, 2012
Damage to the auditory nerve connecting the inner ear and brain causes hearing loss in some individuals. Researchers Dr. Marcelo Rivolta from the University of Sheffield and colleagues have shown that human embryonic stem cells that were differentiated into auditory nerve cells can improve overall by ~45% hearing in gerbils that were treated with ouabain to damage the nerves. Ten weeks after transplantation, some of the differentiated cells were shown to grow projections that connected with the brain stem and the animals could perceive more faint sounds.
Of course the purpose of the studies…
