Nace Golding
University of Texas at Austin, TX·Neuroscience
We can tell where a sound comes from because it reaches our two ears at slightly different times and loudness. A small brainstem region called the superior olivary complex computes these differences, and the same computation helps us follow speech in noisy places.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Physiology
Biology
- Topics
auditory neuroscience
sound localization
binaural hearing
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jun 2028
What they work on
- 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.
- Determine how the types and locations of ion channels underlying the action potential in MSO neurons change after hearing onset, and what these changes do for timing computations.
- Examine in gerbil brain slices how developmental changes in synapses, membrane excitability and action potentials interact to adjust synaptic weights, including after early hearing loss.
- Engineer a reporter Mongolian gerbil in which separate sets of neurons activated by different sounds are labeled independently and permanently in the same animal.
- Map populations of MSO and LSO cells responding to different sound locations, then relate their tuning to dendrite shape, electrical and synaptic properties and gene expression using patch-clamp recordings in brain slices.
More about the research
Yet much about its cells and circuits remains unknown, partly because most research uses mice, whose hearing differs from ours. This research uses the Mongolian gerbil, which hears low frequencies much as humans do. It asks how sound-localization neurons get their properties during development, and how different cell types shape responses to sound.
Why it matters
Hearing with both ears is essential for understanding speech in noise and for language learning in children, and even temporary early hearing loss can cause lasting deficits. Understanding how these brainstem circuits develop and respond to sound may inform clinical strategies for hearing impairment and the design of stimulation approaches in auditory prosthetic devices.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Bradley D Winters
Northeast Ohio Medical University, OH·Neuroscience
Compare inhibitory and excitatory principal neurons of the lateral superior olive (LSO), a brainstem sound-location center, in mice. The work uses PatchSeq gene profiling, patch-clamp and in vivo recordings, and computational models, and tests how conductive hearing loss changes them.
Ikuko Smith
University of California-Santa Barbara, CA·Neuroscience
Determine how synaptic inputs onto distal dendrites relate to dendritic spiking in vivo, using direct dendritic recordings together with two-photon calcium imaging of individual inputs.
Radha Kalluri
University of Southern California, CA·Neuroscience
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.
The school
University of Texas at Austin: 49 labs on PI Pages, $1.1B a year on research, 871 research doctorates a year.
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