Bradley D Winters
Northeast Ohio Medical University, OH·Neuroscience
Telling where a sound comes from helps us focus on one voice in a noisy room and follow speech. This ability is disrupted by hearing loss and in children with central auditory processing disorder (CAPD).
- Fields
Neuroscience
Physiology
Genetics
- Topics
sound localization
auditory brainstem
superior olivary complex
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2029
What they work on
- 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.
- Map the synaptic inputs onto each LSO cell type using bilateral electrical stimulation, to find input-output relationships that support loudness-based (ILD) versus timing-based (ITD) sound localization, and update LSO computational models.
- Determine how dendrites of LSO neurons process incoming signals, using simultaneous recordings from the cell body and dendrite together with two-photon calcium imaging.
- Create knock-in Mongolian gerbil strains that label or allow control of glycinergic inhibitory and glutamatergic excitatory LSO neurons, using viral-vector delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 to early embryos in the oviduct.
- Characterize gerbil ipsilaterally projecting excitatory LSO neurons, absent in mice, by tracer injection into the inferior colliculus followed by whole-cell recording and shape reconstruction, testing whether they are specialized for timing.
More about the research
The brain locates sounds by comparing the two ears. It uses interaural level differences (ILDs), the difference in loudness between ears, and interaural time differences (ITDs), the difference in arrival time. This comparison happens in the superior olivary complex (SOC), a brainstem region. A key part of the SOC is the lateral superior olive (LSO). Its principal neurons were long thought to be a uniform group that mainly reads loudness differences. Growing evidence suggests they also encode timing. Both projects test the idea that different types of LSO neurons are specialized for different jobs.
Why it matters
Locating sounds is essential for understanding speech in noisy places. This ability breaks down with hearing loss and in children with central auditory processing disorder, a condition that is poorly understood. Mapping the brainstem cell types that compute sound location could reveal what goes wrong in these conditions. New genetically modified gerbils, which hear speech frequencies more like humans do, could give hearing researchers a more relevant animal model.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Cellular diversity in the superior olivary complex underlying timing- and intensity-based sound localization
NIH · Aug 2024 – May 2029
Genetically modified gerbils to advance investigation of cellular properties underlying timing- and intensity-based sound localization in mammals with a hearing frequency range more similar to humans
NIH · Jul 2026 – Jun 2028
Closest labs
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.
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.
Jianhua Cang
University of Virginia, VA·Neuroscience
Confirm that Cbln4-positive neurons in the mouse superficial superior colliculus are inhibitory and direction selective, map their shape and connections, and manipulate them to test whether they adjust motion responses based on surrounding context.
The school
Northeast Ohio Medical University: 1 labs on PI Pages, $13M a year on research, 1 research doctorates a year.
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