Tuesday, 3 September 2013

Fruit fly ideal model to study human hearing

University of Iowa researchers say that the common fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, is an ideal model to study hearing loss in humans caused by loud noise. The reason: The molecular underpinnings to its hearing are roughly the same as with people.

As a result, scientists may choose to use the fruit fly to quicken the pace of research into the cause of noise-induced hearing loss and potential treatment for the condition, according to a paper published this week in the online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"As far as we know, this is the first time anyone has used an insect system as a model for NIHL (noise-induced hearing loss)," says Daniel Eberl, UI biology professor and corresponding author on the study.

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Source: Science Daily

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