Eukaryotic cells have been confronted throughout their evolution with potentially lethal
plasma membrane injuries, including those caused by osmotic stress, by infection from …

Sensorineural hearing impairment is the most common form of hearing loss, and
encompasses pathologies of the cochlea and the auditory nerve. Hearing impairment …

In recent years, sensory neuroscientists have made major efforts to dissect the structure and
function of ribbon synapses which process sensory information in the eye and ear. This …

Normal hearing and synaptic transmission at afferent auditory inner hair cell (IHC) synapses
require otoferlin. Deafness DFNB 9, caused by mutations in the OTOF gene encoding …

Sound pressure fluctuations striking the ear are conveyed to the cochlea, where they vibrate
the basilar membrane on which sit hair cells, the mechanoreceptors of the inner ear …

Abstract Models of the human auditory periphery range from very basic functional
descriptions of auditory filtering to detailed computational models of cochlear mechanics …

Sensory synapses of the visual and auditory systems must faithfully encode a wide dynamic
range of graded signals, and must be capable of sustained transmitter release over long …

At the presynaptic active zone, Ca 2+ influx triggers fusion of synaptic vesicles. It is not well
understood how Ca 2+ channel clustering and synaptic vesicle docking are organized …

Auditory prostheses can partially restore speech comprehension when hearing fails. Sound
coding with current prostheses is based on electrical stimulation of auditory neurons and …

Sustained rate-coded signals encode many types of sensory modalities. Some sensory
synapses possess specialized ribbon structures, which tether vesicles, to enable high …