About the Authors

Takao Imai

Contributed equally to this work with: Takao Imai, Yasumitsu Takimoto

timai@ent.med.osaka-u.ac.jp

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan

Yasumitsu Takimoto

Contributed equally to this work with: Takao Imai, Yasumitsu Takimoto

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology, Suita Municipal Hospital, Osaka, Japan

Noriaki Takeda

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Tokushima University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokushima, Japan

Atsuhiko Uno

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Osaka General Medical Center, Osaka, Japan

Hidenori Inohara

Affiliation Department of Otorhinolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan

Shoichi Shimada

Affiliation Department of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka, Japan

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: TI NT. Performed the experiments: TI YT AU. Analyzed the data: TI. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: YT SS. Wrote the paper: TI YT. Study supervision: NT HI SS.