Ruth Anne Eatock, University of Chicago
Professor
Chicago, Illinois
eatock@bsd.uchicago.edu
Office:
(773) 702-9221
Bio/Research
Sensory signaling by hair cells and neurons in the inner ear
The receptor cells of the inner ear - called hair cells after their conspicuous bundles of fine specialized microvilli - transduce sound and head motions into electrical signals, which they transmit across synapses to afferent ...
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The receptor cells of the inner ear - called hair cells after their conspicuous bundles of fine specialized microvilli - transduce sound and head motions into electrical signals, which they transmit across synapses to afferent ...
Click to Expand >>
Bio/Research
Sensory signaling by hair cells and neurons in the inner ear
The receptor cells of the inner ear - called hair cells after their conspicuous bundles of fine specialized microvilli - transduce sound and head motions into electrical signals, which they transmit across synapses to afferent neurons, which in turn carry the electrical signals from the inner ear to the brain. We study all three stages (transduction, transmission and spike generation), typically in excised semi-intact preparations of rodent vestibular organs. The vestibular epithelia have a distinctive synapse between type I hair cells and primary afferent terminals: each hair cell releases glutamate-filled vesicles from many presynaptic ribbons onto a large calyceal ending of a primary afferent neuron. The figure shows voltage signals evoked in the calyx by sinusoidal deflections of the hair bundle. We investigate how the properties of specific ion channels shape the sensory signals. For example, both type I hair cells and calyces have large numbers of low-voltage-activated potassium channels. These channels may expand the frequency range over which vestibular reflexes compensate head motions (Eatock and Songer 2011) and make afferent spike timing irregular (Kalluri et al. 2010).
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The receptor cells of the inner ear - called hair cells after their conspicuous bundles of fine specialized microvilli - transduce sound and head motions into electrical signals, which they transmit across synapses to afferent neurons, which in turn carry the electrical signals from the inner ear to the brain. We study all three stages (transduction, transmission and spike generation), typically in excised semi-intact preparations of rodent vestibular organs. The vestibular epithelia have a distinctive synapse between type I hair cells and primary afferent terminals: each hair cell releases glutamate-filled vesicles from many presynaptic ribbons onto a large calyceal ending of a primary afferent neuron. The figure shows voltage signals evoked in the calyx by sinusoidal deflections of the hair bundle. We investigate how the properties of specific ion channels shape the sensory signals. For example, both type I hair cells and calyces have large numbers of low-voltage-activated potassium channels. These channels may expand the frequency range over which vestibular reflexes compensate head motions (Eatock and Songer 2011) and make afferent spike timing irregular (Kalluri et al. 2010).
Click to Shrink <<