Developing Fast, Red-Light Optogenetic Stimulation of Spiral Ganglion Neurons for Future Optical Cochlear Implants.

ABSTRACT: Optogenetic stimulation of type I spiral ganglion neurons (SGNs) promises an alternative to the electrical stimulation by current cochlear implants (CIs) for improved hearing restoration by future optical CIs (oCIs). Most of the efforts in using optogenetic stimulation in the cochlea so far used early postnatal injection of viral vectors carrying blue-light activated channelrhodopsins (ChRs) into the cochlea of mice. However, preparing clinical translation of the oCI requires (i) reliable and safe transduction of mature SGNs of further species and (ii) use of long-wavelength light to avoid phototoxicity. Here, we employed a fast variant of the red-light activated channelrhodopsin Chrimson (f-Chrimson) and different AAV variants to implement optogenetic SGN stimulation in Mong

SUBMITTER: Huet AT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7991399 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature