In 1961, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research on the function of the cochlea in the mammalian hearing organ.The Vacanti mouse was a laboratory mouse that had what looked like a human ear grown on its back. The "ear" was actually an ear-shaped cartilage structure grown by seeding cow cartilage cells into a biodegradable ear-shaped mold and then implanted under the skin of the mouse; then the cartilage naturally grew by itself. It was developed as an alternative to ear repair or grafting procedures and the results met with much publicity and controversy in 1997. Other animals
The pinna helps direct sound through the ear canal to the eardrum. The complex geometry of ridges on the inner surface of some mammalian ears helps to sharply focus sounds produced by prey, using echolocation signals. These ridges can be regarded as the acoustic equivalent of a fresnel lens, and may be seen in a wide range of animals, including the bat, aye-aye, lesser galago, bat-eared fox, mouse lemur and others.Some large primates such as gorillas and orang-utans (and also humans) have undeveloped ear muscles that are non-functional vestigial structures, yet are still large enough to be easily identified. An ear muscle that cannot move the ear, for whatever reason, has lost that biological function. This serves as evidence of homology between related species.
Muller and retinal pigment epithelium cells normally release immunosuppressive factors, but certain combinations of cytokines may stimulate retinal pigment epithelium cells to release factors encouraging inflammation.Generally, mild intraocular inflammation results in a small, discrete, evanescent lesions. Larger dots, having less discrete borders, are the result of high intensity intraocular inflammation. In essence, an immune response with the normal amount and appropriate cytokine release will result in small white dots and a misregulated response eventually will produce scarring of the retinal tissue. Treatment is required in the latter case to combat loss of vision. The white dots usually disappear naturally. Corticosteroids have been shown to speed up this process. The differences in the immune response of each patient may contribute to the differences seen between the white dot syndromes. Distinct diseases
Due to the number of common features among the multiple syndromes, many suggest that the white dot syndromes are not distinct and represent a spectrum of one disease. Gass described the AZOOR complex which consists of multiple evanescent white dot syndrome, nultifocal choroiditis, punctate inner choroiditis, acute idiopathic blind spot enlargement, acute macular neuroretinopathy, acute annular outer retinopathy, and acute zonal occult outer retinopathy. He suggested these diseases represent one disease due to common factors such as a high occurrence in females, unexplained visual field loss, and reduced electroretinographic amplitudes. Reddy et al. conducted a study on the blind spots in multifocal choroiditis, punctate inner choroiditis, multiple evanescent white dot syndrome, and diffuse subretinal fibrosis syndrome. Clinical and electroretinographic evidence suggested the diseases are distinct.