Sensory processing downstream of primary auditory cortex

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Project Summary/Abstract Candidate: My career goal is to develop an independent research program that examines how hierarchical transformations of auditory information downstream of core auditory cortex supports sound-driven decisions. My previous training experiences has provided me with technical and intellectual skills on auditory neurophysiology, behavioral neuroscience, and hearing loss-induced deficits in auditory processing and perception. I propose to expand my skill set with additional training by conducting wireless cortical recordings while gerbils simultaneously perform a complex auditory task, pharmacological and chemogenetic attenuation of neural activity in awake- behaving animals, and statistical modeling of psychophysical and neural data. During the K99 phase, I will prepare my transition to independence by developing the necessary skills for producing a successful chalk talk, plan job interview strategies, and gain effective lab management applications. By the end of the R00 phase, I plan to have a strong publication record and ample preliminary data that will lead to a successful R01 application. Environment: The K99 phase of this will be award will take place in the Center for Neural Science at New York University; an ideal location for the proposed training phase of this award. My primary mentor, Dr. Dan Sanes, possesses 30+ years of experience in developmental plasticity and auditory neuroscience. His laboratory utilizes innovative physiological, pharmacological, and anatomical techniques that include in vitro slice physiology, wireless extracellular awake-behaving recordings, pharmacological manipulation of neural activity, optogenetics, and anatomical tract tracing with viral vectors. Additional mentoring will be provided by Dr. Xiaoqin Wang (John Hopkins University), who has 25+ years of experience as an expert in the neural coding of acoustic information along the auditory neuroaxis and neurophysiological recordings in awake preparations, and Dr. Roozbeh Kiani (New York University), who is an expert in the neural mechanisms of perceptual decision-making. Research: The neural representations of acoustic signals are transformed at each locus of an ascending auditory pathway. An example of a principal characteristic of this hierarchical processing is the increase of integration time (i.e., the time required to fully encode a sensory cue) across higher auditory cortices. Currently, it is less certain how auditory information is transformed downstream from core auditory cortex (ACx) where it becomes integrated with other sensory inputs, and supports sound-driven decisions. Perturbations of neural activity in parietal cortex (PC), a region downstream of ACx, will be made in animals performing an auditory temporal integration task to determine whether PC is necessary for the observed behavioral temporal integration times (K99). Wireless recordings will be made in ACx and PC from awake-behaving animals performing an auditory temporal integration task to reveal the neural representations that support perceptual integration times (K99). Similar approaches will be used to determine whether the neural representation of PC correlates and supports task performance during a combined multisensory condition (R00).