The Neurobiology of Hearing group, headed by Dr. Isabel Varela Nieto, in collaboration with Dr. Ulf Rapp from the University of Wurzburg, has published an study which describes the auditory phenotype of C-Raf knock-out mice. C-RAF is a kinases that modulate neurogenesis and neuritogenesis during inner ear development. C-RAF deficiency in humans is associated with deafness in rare genetic diseases. In this study, we show that the homozygous C-Raf deletion in mice caused profound deafness with a remarkable reduction of the K+ channel Kir4.1 expression, a trait that suffices as a cause of deafness. In addition, heterozygous C-Raf mice showed higher sensibility to noise induced hearing loss through mechanisms involving the activation of JNK and an exacerbated apoptotic response. These results have been published in the journal Cellular and Molecular Life Science: de Iriarte Rodríguez R, Magariños M, Pfeiffer V, Rapp UR, Varela-Nieto I. C-Raf deficiency leads to hearing loss and increased noise susceptibility. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2015 May 15.