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What Chickens Can Teach Hearing Researchers

“It’s the truth for all of our senses that they are there to convert physical energy in the surrounding world into electrical responses, which are the common currency that the nervous system uses.”

“我们所有的感官都知道，它们的存在是为了将周围世界的物理能量转化为电反应，而电反应是神经系统使用的共同货币。”

Rockefeller University neuroscientist James Hudspeth.

洛克菲勒大学神经学家 James Hudspeth说道。

“So our eyes and the photoreceptors there have to convert light into electricity. Our ears similarly have to convert mechanical vibrations¹ in the air into electrical responses.

“所以我们的眼睛和光感受器必须把光转换成电。同样，我们的耳朵也必须将空气中的机械振动转化为电反应。

And the way this is done is that there are so called hair cells...these cells have little microscopic² bristles³, about a hundred of them, and on the top of each cell, these bristles vibrate back and forth⁴ in response to sound. That sets up an electrical signal that then goes down a nerve fiber⁵ and into the brain.”

这是通过所谓的毛细胞来实现的。这些细胞有微小的显微镜下的鬃毛，大约有100个，在每个细胞的顶部，这些鬃毛会随着声音来回振动。这就产生了一个电信号，然后通过神经纤维进入大脑。”

Hudspeth, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Robert Fettiplace, and the Pasteur Institute’s Christine Petit shared the 2018 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, for their work on the molecular⁶ and neural⁷ mechanisms⁸ of hearing. Hudspeth and Fettiplace both spoke⁹ April 9th at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington D.C. at an event honoring 10 U.S. Nobel and Kavli Prize Laureates. The evening was sponsored by the Kavli Prize and produced by Scientific American. More from Hudspeth:

威斯康辛大学麦迪逊分校的Robert Fettiplace和巴斯德研究所的Christine Petit一同获得了2018年神经科学卡弗里奖，以表彰他们在听力的分子和神经机制方面的研究。Hudspeth和Fettiplace都于4月9日在华盛顿特区的美国国家科学院表彰10位美国诺贝尔奖和卡弗里奖得主的活动上发表了讲话。晚会由卡弗里奖赞助，由《科学美国人》制作。从Hudspeth更多:

“And the real question is then is, what happens with these [hair cells] as they degenerate¹⁰? We lose them owing to loud sounds, we lose them owing to certain legitimate¹¹ drugs, we lose just with aging. And what can be done to repair them so that we can restore hearing?”

“真正的问题是，当这些(毛细胞)退化时会发生什么?我们失去它们是因为噪音，失去它们是因为某些合法的药物，我们只是随着年龄的增长而失去它们。我们能做些什么来修复它们，这样我们才能恢复听力?”

Robert Fettiplace:Well, I mean there are two aspects to this, one is that in fact you could try and regrow them. Almost all hearing loss is due to death of the hair cells or lack of formation of them in the first place…the cells along the cochlea are all different. And you’ve not got to just generate a generic¹² hair cell, you’ve actually got to generate one that’s specific for each place, that has the specific properties, which differ along the organ. And will connect up to the nerve fibers…

Robert Fettiplace:嗯，我的意思是这有两个方面，一个是你可以尝试再生它们。几乎所有的听力损失都是由于毛细胞的死亡或毛细胞缺乏形成而引起的，耳蜗周围的细胞都是不同的。你不需要生成一个普通的毛细胞，你实际上需要生成一个针对每个地方的特定的毛细胞，它有特定的特性，这些特性随着器官的不同而不同。连接到神经纤维

Hudspeth:“The problems that Robert has mentioned pertain¹³ to mammals, including ourselves. And the situation is very different with other four-legged animals, tetrapods. So, in amphibians¹⁴, in reptiles¹⁵, including birds, this regeneration is going on all the time, same in fish. And in fact you can take a chicken to, ya know, a Motley Crue concert or whatever, blast its ears. And they will quite nicely regenerate¹⁶, even with frequency-specific hair cells, they will reconnect, and the animal will be able to hear normally again.

Hudspeth:“Robert提到的问题涉及哺乳动物，包括我们自己。这种情况与其他四足动物，四足动物非常不同。所以，在两栖动物，爬行动物，包括鸟类中，这种再生一直在进行，在鱼类中也是如此。事实上，你可以带一只鸡去听，你知道的，杂七杂八的音乐会，或者别的什么，去炸它的耳朵。它们会很好地再生，即使是有了特定频率的毛细胞，它们也会重新连接起来，动物就能恢复正常听力了。

“I agree that there is an enormous challenge, and this is certainly something that won’t happen overnight in ourselves. But I don’t think it’s a hopeless task and I think basically what many people are trying to do is to decode¹⁷ the signals that are sent as these hair cells develop, and by doing so to recognize the signaling pathways that might be reactivated the original development and restore hair cells by that means.”

“我同意这是一个巨大的挑战，这肯定不会在一夜之间发生在我们身上。但我不认为这是一个绝望的任务,我认为基本上很多人都试图做的是解码的信号发送随着这些头发细胞的发展,并通过这样做来识别信号通路可能重新激活最初的发展和恢复毛细胞的意思。”

Just don’t take your chicken to a Marilyn Manson concert.

只是不要带你的鸡去看玛丽莲曼森的演唱会。