Hearing begins with the stretching of elastic molecular “springs” that open ion channels in the sensory hair cells of the ear. For decades, researchers have known that these gating springs must exist, but they could not find them. A team from the Cluster of Excellence Multiscale Bioimaging (MBExC) in Göttingen has now discovered just such a spring for the first time. Their findings shed new light on our understanding of the sense of hearing and the function of ion channels. Hearing begins with the stretching of elastic molecular “springs” that open ion channels in the sensory hair cells of the ear. For decades, researchers have known that these gating springs must exist, but they could not find them. A team from the Cluster of Excellence Multiscale Bioimaging (MBExC) in Göttingen has now discovered just such a spring for the first time. Their findings shed new light on our understanding of the sense of hearing and the function of ion channels. Molecular & Computational biology Phys.org – latest science and technology news stories
Discovery of molecular ‘spring’ reveals how hearing is triggered
