Research Paper Volume 11, Issue 18 pp 7416—7441

Figure 7. Inner hair cell (IHC) patch clamp recordings in KI mice. (A) Representative calcium currents (I_Ca) induced by voltage ramps in IHCs of wild-type and homozygous mice. (B) The I_Ca peak of homozygous mice was significantly lower than wild-type mice (**P= 0.0091, t=2.978, df=15.49, Student’s unpaired t-test with Welch’s correction). (C) V_half, and (D) slope of I_ca showed no significant difference between the two genotype groups (P>0.05, Student’s unpaired t-test with Welch’s correction). (E) Representative whole-cell I_Ca and membrane capacitance (C_m) traces. Exocytosis was triggered by calcium current in response to a single step depolarization. (F) Homozygous mice exhibited no significant membrane capacitance change (ΔC_m), (G) calcium charge (Q) or (H) ΔC_m/Q, representing Ca²⁺ efficiency in triggering exocytosis (all P>0.05, two-way ANOVA followed by Bonferroni post-test).