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Nature 432, 685-686 (9 December 2004) | doi:10.1038/432685a; Published online 8 December 2004

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Hearing:  Channel at the hair's end

Jonathan Ashmore1

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Ion channels controlled by sound underlie the sense of hearing. Having long eluded researchers, the first such mammalian channel has now been identified in the mouse inner ear.

When you hear a sound or shake your head, the hair cells of your inner ear convert movement into the electrical currency that the brain understands. But how such transduction from mechanical to electrical signals works on a molecular scale remains unclear.

  1. Jonathan Ashmore is in the Department of Physiology, University College London, and at the UCL Ear Institute, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
    e-mail: Email: j.ashmore@ucl.ac.uk

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