Project Summary: The adult nervous system can recover limited function following stroke or injury. Here, the plan is to study how the central auditory pathways of an adult mouse gradually recover the ability to encode sound following near-complete degeneration of the auditory nerve. A sensory rehabilitation behavioral task for mice has been developed in the lab which improves the neural representation of acoustic stimuli. The use of optogenetic stimulation (or silencing) in the cortex of genetically engineered mice will allow to restrict the effects of laser stimulation on particular neuronal subtypes in the cortex. The idea is to couple laser stimulation of the cortex to the mouse's behavior as it is doing the task in the aim of understanding how it is affecting the neural response and possibly improving the therapy's outcome. The neural response will be studied using in-vivo neurophysiological recordings and data-analysis scripts.
This study will contribute towards a richer understanding of normal function, and contribute to develop therapies for remediating abnormal auditory signal processing following a history of compromised hearing or deafness in early life.