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, . and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, and the diroctionn of Douglas B. McCreery, F'h,D., is developing a new method of re- storing hearing In deaf persons. Also col- laborating on the research is the House Ear Institute (HET) in Los Angeles, Called an auditory prosthesis, the de- vice functions by encoding sounds picked up by a microphone into electrical signals that are then conveyed to an array of elec- trodes Implanted in the brain. Electrode fabaraicator.A.L Tirado tests the ira•suia- tion of an etectrocle to be used in experimental treatment of profound deafness in a joint HMItt project with the House Ear Tnstitute, The HMRI group, which also experimental pathologist Ted Yuen, Ph.D., and electrode fabricator Al Tirado, has been developing parameters for safe stim- ulation of microelectrodes to be im- planted In the tarain's cochlear nucleus, It is impottarlt to determine the maximum tration of electrode, and the duratioran of stimui that nerve cells will tolerate. William iM•. Agnew, Ph.D., is director of the Neurolog- ical Research Labo:ratories, "Nerve cells are not particularly tolerant to overstimulation," Dr. McCreery said. "It's like exercise - if you work out too often or benchh press too heavy a•woight, it will wear you down and perhaps dam- age your mttscles. We need safe protocols; these electrodes should work for many yoars," At HEI, progress has also been made. Researchers have found, by examining the cochlear nerve cells of cadavers of people who had been deaf for many years, that there are still viable nerve cells left to stimulate, Long-term deafness has not re- sulted In their total deterioratiota. © N, El hosted by Cathy Andrews and Maureen Savage. During the recep- Ilows Temple, guests crossed the street for a tour of HMRI's tis- otherapy, cqtogenctics and prostate cancer research laboratories at 99 Providing ann overview of the clinical aspects of prostate cancer was Dr. Lawrence •W. Jones, who told the audience that 50 percent of men over the age of 80 have prostate cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths of men in the United States and in the Pasadena area. "Digital rectal examination has proven through the years to be the most successful method of diagnosing prostate cancer," he said, "with ultrascrttnd agood sup- portive tool in conjunction with prostatic needle biopsy." Most prostate cancer is latent, that is, it is present but apparontly dormant, It is discov- ered often by chance, when another genito-urinary prolalo:mm is being treated, or else at autopsy. Latent prostate cancer causes no problems; clinical prostate cancer does, Repressing prostate cancer ~ David Kirk, Ph.D., a HMRI cell biologist, has been at work to isolate and identify sub- stances from normal human tissue that could perhaps repress clinical prostate cancer. It is possible,ho said, that these same substances are present inn latent prostate cancer, pre- venting it from growing. "Any future breakthrough in the control and understanding of clinical prostate cancer will probably involve the ide.ntification and purification of normal growth inhibitors from normal prostate tissue," he said. HMRI's Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) program under the direction of Brian D. Ross, M.D., D. Phil., is developing new methods for early diagnosis of the disease, its metabolic identification and characterization, its chemical "fingerprints" in preclinical and precancerous conditions, and. MRS monitoring of patients' treatment. Franlc Parivar, M.D., of HMRI's Magnetic Resonance 1ab has been working on the prcts- tate 3magio.g program for two years. For this imaging a coil is inserted into the rectun:am and provides a,txa.uch better view of the prostate than conventional MRI proced,ures, The ex- aminatiotx ta.kes abc,ut 45 minutes, HMRC is one of four centers in the U.S., and the only one on the West Coast, to test the coil for FDA approval, which has now been given. Also participating In this effort are Dr. Ross,lJr. Jones, who has referred research patients, and Vas i^tajanayaga:m, Ph.D., who de- veloped the necessary pulse sequences for MR imaging of the prostate, Patients are referred by their physicians to i;7r. Parivar at (818) 397-8532, D izag at the Odd Fellows Te:mtale, Guild HMRL dvances in HMRI's prostate cancer research program were presented for Al- Guild members and their husbands at the Guild's November 2:meetiang, The ii drews welcome HMit.T scientists Frank Parivar, M.t7., and