Anesthesiology and pain medicine professor Ebenezer Yamoah and his research team have demonstrated that stem cells taken from the lateral ventricle area of the brain can be successfully transformed, or differentiated, to function like the hair-covered sensory cells of the inner ear that are responsible for transmitting sounds to the brain. The findings raise the hope of someday reversing what was once considered incurable hearing loss. The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.