Sensorineural
deafness is the most common disorders of senses,which severely impact the
life quality and bring heavy burden to the
family as well as the society.Current
state-of-
art treatments focus on
sound amplification and
implanted electrodes that stimulate the
auditory nerve.These
strategies offer partial
recovery of function for a limited
patient population but do not come close to restoring natural
hearing.Clearly,there is strong need for development of
biological treatments for the
hearing restoration through correcting the genetic defects or regenerating the new
hair cells on the damaged cochlear sensory
epithelium.We reviewed the advances in the
biological restoration of the
hearing,including the
gene therapy and the
hair cell regeneration aspects.