Radha Kalluri
University of Southern California, CA·Neuroscience
Our sense of balance depends on nerve cells in the inner ear that report how the head is moving. Some of these vestibular neurons fire at irregular intervals, which gives the precise timing needed to track fast head movements.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Physiology
Biophysics
- Topics
vestibular system
inner ear
balance
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Nov 2027
What they work on
- Test whether the mix of ion channels in vestibular ganglion neurons explains their regular versus irregular firing, using patch-clamp recordings combined with single-cell labeling of dendrite shape in semi-intact inner-ear tissue.
- Define how cholinergic efferent signals, which the brain sends to the ear using acetylcholine, modulate two key ion channels controlling vestibular neuron firing, using pharmacology. Test whether some neurons are more responsive than others.
- Build computational models from matched ion channel and dendritic shape data to compare how much channel makeup and dendritic integration each contribute to vestibular afferent responses.
More about the research
Others fire at regular intervals, which lets them detect slow movements sensitively. What creates this split is an open question. It could come from the ion channels in each neuron's membrane, the tiny pores that control electrical signaling. Or it could also depend on the shape of the neuron's branches (dendrites) and the connections they make. Answering this matters for understanding how balance information is encoded, and for protecting these vulnerable neurons.
Why it matters
Hearing and balance neurons are vulnerable to damage, and their ion channels can be tuned by inputs from other cells in ways that protect them. Learning how this tuning works, and which neuron groups respond most to it, could guide future therapies that protect the inner-ear neurons people rely on for balance and hearing. It could also help aim such therapies at specific types of neurons.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Larry Hoffman
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Neuroscience
Produce graded lesions of the vestibular sensory tissue by delivering precise doses of gentamicin into the inner-ear fluid of an animal model, and document the damage by histopathologic analysis.
James Liao
University of Florida, FL·Neuroscience
Compare lateral line sensitivity between surface fish and blind cavefish across larval development, using in vivo patch clamp recordings from neurons connected to flow-sensing hair cells.
Nace Golding
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Neuroscience
Test whether dendritic asymmetry, lopsided input branches, sets the spatial preferences of medial superior olive neurons, using long-term manipulation of interaural time differences in living gerbils.
The school
University of Southern California: 47 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
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