1a - Optical Imaging and Stimulation in the Inner Ear
Tobias Moser, Ernst Bamberg, and MED-EL GmbH
Hearing impairment is the most frequent human sensory deficit. Major progress in understanding the function and dysfunction of the cochlea has been made by studying normal and hearing impaired animals. Still, important questions, such as why each hair cell drives multiple auditory nerve fibres and what this population of neurons codes remain unsolved, because the present recording techniques do not allow simultaneous investigation of coding at several synapses. Optical approaches to the cochlea e.g. (Maier et al., 1997; Choudhury et al., 2006; Fridberger et al., 2006; Monfared et al., 2006; Tomo et al., 2007), in principle, enable imaging of the response of several neural elements and promise insights into population coding of sound information. Moreover, they promise innovative means of neurostimulation (e.g. Izzo et al., 2006), in particular when the sensitivity of cochlear neurons for stimulating light is increased by the expression of channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) (Nagel et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2007).
Hearing impairment is the most frequent human sensory deficit. Major progress in understanding the function and dysfunction of the cochlea has been made by studying normal and hearing impaired animals. Still, important questions, such as why each hair cell drives multiple auditory nerve fibres and what this population of neurons codes remain unsolved, because the present recording techniques do not allow simultaneous investigation of coding at several synapses. Optical approaches to the cochlea e.g. (Maier et al., 1997; Choudhury et al., 2006; Fridberger et al., 2006; Monfared et al., 2006; Tomo et al., 2007), in principle, enable imaging of the response of several neural elements and promise insights into population coding of sound information. Moreover, they promise innovative means of neurostimulation (e.g. Izzo et al., 2006), in particular when the sensitivity of cochlear neurons for stimulating light is increased by the expression of channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2) (Nagel et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2007; Zhang et al., 2007).
Belongs to Group(s):
Physiology of the hair cell ribbon synapse,
Functional analysis of ion pumps and transporters,
MED-EL GmbH
Is part of Section 1