Larry Hoffman
University of California-Los Angeles, CA·Neuroscience
The inner ear holds more than the hearing organ. Its vestibular system senses head motion and gravity, which keeps vision steady and the body balanced.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Physiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
vestibular hypofunction
inner ear
balance
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- 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.
- Relate lesion severity to function by recording single afferent neuron activity and measuring the vestibulo-ocular reflex, the eye movement that steadies gaze during head motion.
- Test how nerve firing patterns relate to the calyx nerve ending's shape and its expression of KCNQ4, a potassium channel, and sodium-potassium ATPase, an ion pump.
- Map synaptic ribbons, the signal-release structures inside hair cells, in damaged tissue to test whether lost hair cell-to-nerve connections add to impaired balance.
More about the research
When its sensory tissue is only partly damaged, a condition called peripheral vestibular hypofunction, people can suffer dizziness and imbalance. It remains unclear which cellular damage causes the loss of function and how that damage changes the signals sent to the brain. This project links tissue damage, nerve signals and behavior in one animal model.
Why it matters
Damage to the inner ear's balance organs from drugs like gentamicin can leave patients with lasting dizziness and imbalance. By identifying the physiologic signatures of partial vestibular loss, this work could help clinicians recognize the condition in suspected patients. By pinpointing which cell structures are damaged, it could point to targets for protective and rehabilitative strategies.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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.
R. Burger
Lehigh University, PA·Neuroscience
Test whether overexpressing BMP7, a signaling protein that patterns the early ear, repatterns the frequency tuning of hair cells in the chick inner ear toward low-frequency types.
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.
The school
University of California-Los Angeles: 84 labs on PI Pages, $1.9B a year on research, 803 research doctorates a year.
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