Maria Geffen
University of Pennsylvania, PA·Neuroscience
Picking out a voice in a noisy room is something people learn to do, and it is essential for conversation and for finding our way by sound. Two brain areas are known to help detect sounds in noise.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Physiology
Biology
- Topics
auditory neuroscience
hearing in noise
auditory cortex
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Apr 2027
What they work on
- Train mice by operant conditioning to detect or discriminate target sounds in background noise, and vary noise contrast before each target to test how adaptation to the background interacts with target detection.
- Record neuronal responses in the auditory cortex and the lemniscal and non-lemniscal auditory thalamus while mice perform sound-in-noise tasks, to see how each region represents targets and adapts to noise.
- Use optogenetic, cell-type-specific manipulations, including of inhibitory cortical neurons and the thalamic reticular nucleus, to test which cortex-thalamus circuits are needed to learn and perform hearing in noise.
- Apply a generalized linear-nonlinear model to continuously estimate neuronal gain and test how distinct auditory microcircuits adapt to noise contrast, detect targets and control response amplification.
More about the research
One is the auditory cortex, the brain's outer layer for hearing. The other is the auditory thalamus, a relay station deeper in the brain. Both exchange signals in a loop, but it is still unknown how the small circuits within and between them let the brain improve at hearing in noise. This project aims to identify those circuits in mice.
Why it matters
People with hearing loss, age-related hearing loss or communication deficits, and those using hearing aids or cochlear implants, often struggle to hear in noisy places and when moving between quiet and noisy settings. Knowing which brain circuits let the brain adjust to noise could guide new therapies. It could also inform how hearing aids and cochlear implants shape their output to stimulate these feedback circuits well.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Hiroyuki Kato
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC·Neuroscience
Map the fast non-lemniscal auditory pathway from the cochlear nucleus through the thalamus to cortical layer 6 in mice, using anatomical tracing and in vivo single-unit recordings.
Gunnar Quass
University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI·Neuroscience
Record high-density activity of auditory cortex neurons in deafened mice over weeks as they learn a reward-based cochlear implant task, testing whether synchronized stimulation disrupts formation of small neuron networks.
Hey-Kyoung Lee
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Neuroscience
Determine how early- and late-onset visual deprivation changes three corticothalamic feedback pathways from auditory cortex (Ntsr1, Cplx3/Drd1a and Rbp4 neurons) in adult mice, using optogenetics.
The school
University of Pennsylvania: 90 labs on PI Pages, $2.2B a year on research, 750 research doctorates a year.
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