J Vis Exp. 2009;2: 1211.doi:10.3791

Gross and fine dissection of inner ear sensory epithelia in adult zebrafish.
Liang J, Burgess SM.

changed for hair loss blog use

Neurosensory epithelia in the inner ear are the crucial structures for hearing and balance functions. Therefore, it is important to understand the cellular and molecular features of the epithelia, which are mainly composed of two types of cells: hair cells (HCs) and supporting cells (SCs). Here we choose to study the inner ear sensory epithelia in adult zebrafish not only because the epithelial structures are highly conserved in all vertebrates studied, but also because the adult zebrafish is able to regenerate hair cells, an ability that mammals lose shortly after birth. We use the inner ear of adult zebrafish as a model system to study the mechanisms of inner ear hair cell regeneration in adult vertebrates that could be helpful for treatment of hearing/balance deficits in human as a result of hair cell loss. Here we demonstrate how to do gross and fine dissections of inner ear sensory epithelia in adult zebrafish. ..snip..

Loss of hair cells in the inner ear