Temporal Bone Anatomy and Method of Drug and Gene Delivery and Whole-Mount Dissection in the Murine Inner Ear

The mouse has been a practical animal model for studying the inner ear. Understanding the anatomy of the murine inner ear is essential when delivering drugs or vectors for therapeutic studies. In addition, a knowledge of dissection techniques is necessary for performing immunohistological examinations of the cochlea and vestibule. However, there have been few comprehensive reports describing these techniques to date. In this paper, I summarize the anatomical knowledge and methods for whole-mount dissection of the murine inner ear, providing a practical guide to advance our understanding of the inner ear physiology and pathology using mouse models.