Announcing the 2013 Capita Foundation Auditory Research Grant Recipients
University of Toronto
Project: “Induction
of Cochlear Neurons by Defined Transcription Factors”
Auditory neurons (AN’s) play a
critical role in hearing as they transmit sound information from the inner ear
to the brain and their progressive degeneration is associated with disease
conditions, excessive noise and aging.
AN’s are like most neurons in the brain, they lack the ability to
regenerate. Therefore, the loss of these
cells leads to permanent hearing impairment and methods for inducing neuron
replacement and regeneration have yet to be fully developed.
Daniel
Bendor, Ph.D.
University College London
Project:
“Optimizing the Encoding of
Temporal Information in an Auditory Cortical Prosthetic”
Brown University
Project:
“A Novel Biological Model for
Protection from Noise-Induced Hearing Loss”
Bats live in close
proximity to lots of other bats, and they regularly undergo prolonged exposure
to intense sound at 80-110 dB SPL. We found that big brown bats do not
experience temporary or permanent threshold shifts (TTS, PTS) after exposure to
intense noise at levels and durations that cause massive hearing losses in
other mammals like humans, monkeys, cats, mice, and gerbils. Can brown bats prove to be useful in
providing a key to successful noise protection in humans?
Northwestern University
Project: “Investigating
Prestin’s Role in Outer Hair Cell Survival”
The objective of this study is to investigate how prestin contributes to
survival of outer hair cells, the outcome of which could allow development of a
novel strategy to reduce hearing impairment.
Oregon Health & Science University
Project: “Effects of
Changing Frequency-to-Electrode Maps on Electrode Pitch Plasticity and
Discrimination with Cochlear Implants”
Our laboratory recently
demonstrated that pitch perceived through a cochlear implant (CI) can change
over time by as much as 2-3 octaves, and that these changes depend on how
the CI is programmed. We hypothesize that a novel method of CI
programming will lead to increased pitch differences between electrodes, and
that this increased pitch separation will improve both electrode discrimination
and speech perception in noise.
Marc Bassim, Ph.D.
American University of Beirut – Medical Center
American University of Beirut – Medical Center
Project:
“Congenital Hearing Loss in the
Middle East Area: Generating Patient-Specific iPS
The purpose of this
project is to model the pathological processes of Congenital Hearing Loss in
vitro. This will be done through establishing iPS cells from patients with
Congenital Hearing Loss belonging to a highly consanguineous population and
inducing their differentiation into sensorineural cells.
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