For the next year I will be a working member in the laboratory of Dr. Ebenezer Yamoah at the Center for Neuroscience at UC Davis. I will be joining an ongoing project to repair damaged or lost inner hair cells of the cochlea. Induced by mechanical stimuli, these hair cells promote an electrical signal routed to the brain by spiral ganglion neurons, a process that is essential for functional hearing. Neural stem cells, located in the subventricular zone of the lateral ventricle, readily differentiate into bipolar neurons. These cells have the capacity replace damaged spiral ganglion neurons, and innervate inner hair cells of the cochlea. My project will use this technique to differentiate neural stem cells into spiral ganglion-like neurons and compare the electrophysiological properties of voltage-gated sodium channels found in these cells to that of natural spiral ganglion neurons cultured from healthy mice. Voltage-gated sodium channels depolarize the cellular membrane upon activation, propagating action potential along the axon of a neuron, which is crucial for traducing auditory signals to the auditory cortex of the brain. By using whole-cell patch clamp techniques, I will be able to measure the entire electrical conductance associated with all sodium ion channels throughout the membrane of these neurons. With the patch-clamp assay, I can determine whether or not neurons derived from neural stem cells are a suitable candidate for cell replacement therapy in order to recover hearing loss.