Mechanical coupling between hair cells of the inner ear

内耳毛细胞之间的机械耦合

• 批准号: 0920696
• 负责人: Dolores Bozovic
• 金额: $ 56.49万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-08-01 至 2012-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0920696&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Mechanical; coupling; between; hair; cells

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).The sense of hearing plays a crucial role in our lives, as it helps us orient ourselves in space and communicate with each other; nevertheless, it remains one of the least understood of the senses, particularly at the first level of processing. To be sensitive to extremely faint sounds, the auditory system must detect movements at a scale comparable to atomic dimensions. This project will explore how the inner ear achieves its remarkable sensitivity. In particular, measurements will be made of the movements of hair cells, specialized cells that detect mechanical signals from incoming sound waves and convert them into electrical signals sent to the brain. Using an internal auditory organ from the frog, the tissue will be placed in the appropriate chemical environment, and movements with be recorded with a high-speed camera. The hypothesis is that the response will show synchronization (i.e., that the cells will move in unison when given a mechanical stimulus) which can serve to explain the extreme sensitivity of the whole organ. The goal is to determine how interactions between individual elements affect the behavior of the whole sensor, and thus help answer one of the long-open problems in auditory neuroscience. The project will serve to train graduate and undergraduate students in techniques at the interface of physics and sensory neuroscience, which will be complemented by new courses specifically designed for this purpose and recently introduced into the departmental curriculum.

该奖项由2009年《美国复苏和再投资法案》(公法111-5)资助。听觉在我们的生活中扮演着至关重要的角色，因为它帮助我们在太空中定位自己并相互交流；然而，它仍然是最不被理解的感官之一，特别是在第一级处理过程中。为了对极其微弱的声音敏感，听觉系统必须检测到与原子尺寸相当的规模的运动。这个项目将探索内耳如何达到其非凡的敏感度。特别是，将对毛细胞的运动进行测量，毛细胞是一种特殊的细胞，它从传入的声波中检测机械信号，并将其转换为发送到大脑的电信号。利用青蛙体内的听觉器官，这些组织将被放置在适当的化学环境中，并用高速摄像机记录下动作。假设反应将显示同步(即，细胞在受到机械刺激时将同步移动)，这可以解释整个器官的极端敏感性。其目标是确定单个元素之间的相互作用如何影响整个传感器的行为，从而帮助回答听觉神经科学中一个长期悬而未决的问题。该项目将为研究生和本科生提供物理学和感觉神经科学相结合的技术方面的培训，并将辅之以专门为此目的设计的新课程，这些课程最近被纳入系的课程。