Lyngholm and Sakata (2019) show that CBA mice expressing ChR2 coupled to the parvalbumin promoter could excite cortical narrow spiking neurons (inhibitory interneurons) on light stimulation, and inhibit broad spiking units as effectively as in mice with a C57 background. On the other hand, a benefit of using the c57BL/6J mouse line is that it is more susceptible to acoustic overexposure than other strains (Willott and Erway, 1998; Davis et al., 2001) and thereby a suitable animal model for studying noise-induced tinnitus. The gene discussed is PVALB; the disease is Tinnitus.