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Scientists at Northwestern Medicine found that the inner hair cell plays an active role in building the structure of the hearing organ during development. In mice, the hearing organ is arranged in a precise pattern of sensory and supporting cells, and the study showed that inner hair cells help guide how several supporting cells form and where they settle. These cells promote the development of some supporting cell types, limit others, and attract certain cells to wrap around them. When inner hair cells are removed, the normal organization of the hearing organ breaks down. This shows that inner hair cells act as organizers during early development, shaping the layout needed for normal hearing and offering useful clues for future hearing repair research.
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