Overview

This textbook is a foundational, explanatory review of difficult concepts in genetics and embryology as they apply to the ear and sensory organs serving hearing and balance. The textbook provides a unique resource that brings molecular, cellular and systems level mechanisms together to bear on understanding the ontogeny of hearing and vestibular senses. Numerous illustrations are used to help convey current ideas. An extensive collection of tables summarize genes and gene products associated with membrane channels, molecular signaling cascades, transcription factors and more. The reader is lead from introductory basic science foundations of anatomy and physiology, genetics, and embryology, to detailed accounts of developmental events found in the earliest embryo to functional and anatomical maturation. The authors explain the relevance of genes, molecular signaling and cellular interactions to normal development as well as to human inner ear disease including deafness and balance disorders. The exploding amount of new information on developmental molecular mechanisms is integrated with new and long established discoveries about functional and anatomical changes during ontogeny. The work will be useful to students and faculty of the basic hearing sciences, audiology, and otolaryngology, and as a reference resource for accomplished hearing scientists.

Audience

Primary Subject: Audiology / Genetics and Syndromes
Audience Level: Professional/Textbook - Desk Copy

• Introduction
• Nature of cells and tissues
• Basic concepts in genetics
• Basic concepts in embryology
• Embryogenesis of the outer and middle ear
• Embryogenesis of the inner ear
• Emergence of inner ear function

About The Authors

Sherri Jones, Ph.D.

Dr. Sherri Jones is a Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at East Carolina University (ECU). She teaches courses in auditory physiology, embryology and genetics of hearing impairment, and vestibular assessment and management. She conducts basic research on genetics of inner ear dysfunction and genetic influences on aging of auditory and vestibular function. This research has been supported by the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders and the Deafness Research Foundation. She also sees patients at ECU Speech Language and Hearing Clinic specializing in vestibular assessment and has active clinical research in vestibular function following head trauma and blast injury.

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Timothy Jones, PhD

Dr. Timothy A. Jones is a Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at East Carolina University. He teaches courses in physiology, instrumentation, and advanced acoustics. He conducts basic research on the development of the inner ear. This includes evaluating the role of sensory experience and neural activity in developing auditory and vestibular circuits as well as sound transfer characteristics of the middle ear during development. His research has been supported by the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Organization for Hearing Research.

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