Affiliates

Using molecular and cellular techniques, along with advanced imaging and electrophysiology, we try to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms that a) trigger formation of glutamatergic synapses and stabilize them, b) control the level of synaptic plasticity, and c) regulates ionotropics glutamate receptors.

My broad research interests are in the area of sensory system development and regeneration. My research currently involves the mammalian inner ear. The mammalian organ of Corti is made up of hair cells and support cells that are arranged in a stereotyped pattern. My lab is interested in what signals are involved in the full differentiation of these various cell types and their potential for regeneration after hair cell loss. I am interested in what prevents the hair cells from regenerating after damage in mammals, as they do in birds and lower vertebrates. In particular I am exploring the role of FGFs in the development of the specific cell types in the mammalian cochlea.

Our work concerns development of hind-brain auditory circuits, with a particular emphasis on signaling mechanisms that control dendritic development. A particular focus is the neurotrophin family of neurotrophic factors, their receptors, and membrane proteins that control subcellular trafficking of these receptors.

Dr. Brooks is a research scientist at the Institute and in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She received her BA from Pomona College and her Ph.D. from Boston University. Her main line of research centers on the development of social cognition in infancy. Her areas of interest include the study of gaze following and pointing. She has been examining the development of these important social cues in infancy and the attributions infants make about others’ perceptions and goals. She is also interested in how early social cognition contributes to the understanding of language and theory of mind in children with typical and atypical development.

Dr. Coltrera is a UW professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery and is board-certified in otolaryngology. He has conducted research on hair cells of the inner ear and on outcomes for head and neck cancer treatments, with particular emphasis on quality of life.

I am interested in chronic sinus disease and how our various treatments impact the lives of our patients.

In the past few decades, the field of speech-language pathology has begun to recognize the validity of comprehensive evaluation and treatment of communication disorders. This is reflected in ASHA's adoption of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) as the framework for the Scope of Practice in Speech-Language Pathology (ASHA, 2001). As such, Dr. Eadie's long-term goals are to develop a clinical evaluative protocol by which clinicians can more effectively and accurately report the degree of vocal impairment using physiologic, acoustic, and auditory-perceptual measures. In addition, she hopes to continue to expand upon the current clinical database addressing the degree of impact on daily voice activity and participation as affected by various types of voice disorders, including those affected by head and neck cancer.

"Our goals are to not only to cure head and neck cancer utilizing an individual patient approach, but to restore speech, swallowing and appearance with state of the art treatment."

To develop new biological therapies for human hearing loss and balance disorders by applying the most modern tools of molecular and developmental biology to repair or regenerate the damaged or non-functioning ear. Specific areas of interest include afferent innervation of the postnatal cochlea; feasibility of hybrid cochlear implants; and hair cell transcription.

Dr. Kuhl is internationally recognized for her research on early language and brain development, and studies that show how young children learn. Her work has played a major role in demonstrating how early exposure to language alters the brain. It has implications for critical periods in development, for bilingual education and reading readiness, for developmental disabilities involving language, and for research on computer understanding of speech.

** What’s on your mind? ** This is what we want to know while you are communicating and interacting with the world. We combine magneto- and electro-encephalography (M-EEG) along with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to map the spatio-temporal dynamics of the cortical network involved in auditory attention, object selection and scene analysis (e.g., listening to your friend in a crowded restaurant) ** Searching for neural biomarkers ** We seek to discover distinct brain signatures that can be used to classify different brain states (coined as “neural biomarkers”). Our goal is to combine this neuroscience knowledge with state-of-the-art engineering approaches to design next-generation Brain-Computer-Interface devices that enable users to dynamically tune their prosthetic devices using only their minds. Imagine!

Andrew Meltzoff, Ph.d., is an internationally renowned expert on infant and child development. His discoveries about infant imitation have revolutionized our understanding of early perception, cognition, and brain development. His research on social-emotional development and children’s understanding of other people has helped shape policy and practice. Dr. Meltzoff's 25 years of research on young children has had far-reaching implications for cognitive science, especially for ideas about cross-modal perception and its development; for brain science, especially for ideas about common coding and shared neural circuits for perception and action; and for early education and parenting, particularly for ideas about the importance of role models, both adults and peers, in child development and critical periods in human learning.

My research focuses on the development and application of machine learning and statistical methods for interpreting complex biological data sets. In selecting research areas to focus on, I am drawn to research problems in which I can solve fundamental problems in biology while also pushing the state of the art in machine learning. Currently, my research can be roughly divided into three areas, as follows: Predicting protein properties. My lab has done extensive work using methods such as hidden Markov models, dynamic Bayesian networks and support vector machine classifiers to identify remote protein homologs, assign gene functional annotation to proteins, and to predict protein secondary structure from sequence. We continue to develop novel algorithms for a variety of these and related problems. Chromatin and gene regulation. We use motif-based hidden Markov models to characterize collections of transcription factor binding sites in genomic DNA. We also develop models that predict properties of chromatin from genomic DNA. Analysis of mass spectrometry data. In collaboration with Michael MacCoss's lab, we have developed a series of machine learning and statistical methods for the analysis of shotgun proteomics data. In this field, we continue to work on protein identification and quantification, targeted proteomics, and biomarker discovery.

The discovery that non-mammalian vertebrates can regenerate new auditory and vestibular hair cells after damage suggests the possibility of therapies eventually being developed to treat hearing and balance disorders in humans. Our current research is aimed at identifying factors that will trigger supporting cells to divide and generate new hair cells. We use cell culture, immunocytochemical, and molecular techniques to identify growth factors and other molecules that regulate supporting cell proliferation and differentiation and hope to provide information that will aid in the development of therapies to alleviate sensori-neural hearing disorders.

In our lab, we use the tools of cognitive neuroscience to investigate the cognitive and neural underpinnings of human language. The primary method used in our lab involves recording event-related brain potentials (ERPs) from the scalp while people read or listen to language. ERPs reflect the summed, simultaneously occurring postsynaptic activity in large groups of pyramidal neurons in neocortex. Unlike other brain-based measures such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), ERPs provide a continuous,millisecond-by-millisecond record of the brain's electrical activity. Using this method, we have learned, for example, that the brain responds differently to anomalies involving sentence structure (syntax) and sentence meaning(semantics). We have subsequently used these language-sensitive ERP effects to investigate many aspects of language comprehension, including changes in brain activity that are associated with second-language acquisition, individual differences in the processing of complex sentences, and the neurobiological manifestations of linguistically encoded social stereotypes.

Dr. Phillips is a UW research associate professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and director of the Dizziness and Balance Center. He has an extensive research program that includes affiliations with the UW's Human Interface Technology Laboratory, the UW Autism Center, Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center, Center for Integrative Brain Research at Children's Hospital, and the Washington National Primate Research Center.

My lab is interested in how, during embryonic development, cells of the nervous system acquire their specific fates, so that they display the distinct characteristics necessary for their proper function. We have been examining how neural crest cells make cell fate choices in the zebrafish embryo, an emerging vertebrate developmental system with distinct advantages for cellular, molecular and genetic study. The neural crest generates the neurons and glia of the peripheral nervous system, as well as pigment cells and craniofacial cartilages. We are interested in how environmental factors such as wnts and BMPs are involved in specifying these cell fates. We have also performed a genetic screen to identify genes involved in the specification of particular lineages. We have identified mutations affecting the development of dorsal root ganglia, the enteric nervous system, jaw cartilages and pigment cells. Our overall goal is to determine how these genes regulate differentiation into specific cell types, identify upstream factors regulating their expression and the downstream effectors that confer specific cell characteristics.

Dr. Richards studies metabolic changes and functional relationships in the brain during the progression of neurodegenerative diseases and during language processing. His brain imaging projects involve functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of language, memory, pain, face perception, and states of consciousness. He also studies EEG event-related potentials that are co-registered to MRI and fMRI during the cognitive task of face perception. Proton MR spectroscopy is also used in several projects to study neurochemical changes in neurological disorders. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), functional connectivity, and perfusion imaging are also used. By use of proton echo-planar spectroscopic imaging (PEPSI), Richards and colleagues measure various brain metabolites (lactate, N-acetyl-aspartate, choline, and creatine) to try to identify brain regions that are normally activated during language processing and which may be dysfunctional in children with dyslexia. Studies led by Richards comparing brain changes in children with and without dyslexia should elucidate critical features of genetic, developmental, and environmental interactions among influences affecting the severity of the disability. He is also involved in using fast spectroscopic imaging to observe decreases in N-acetyl-asparate and choline-containing compounds in animal models of multiple sclerosis (MS) and in humans with MS. Richards hopes to shed light on the neurophysiologic cause of MS and determine why clinically silent MRI lesions are present in MS patients.

Our research uses a wide variety of methods and numerous preparations to better understand development, plasticity, pathology and potential repair of the inner ear and auditory pathways of the brian. We investigate both the fundamental neurobiology of hearing and translational opportunities of the present and future that are directed toward preventing and curing hearing loss and balance disorders. One research program endeavors to understand cellular processes underlying the development of information processing in the auditory system. Anatomical, physiological, and acoustical methods are used to examine development of cellular mechanisms underlying acoustic signal processing by the inner ear. Parallel studies using both in vivo and in vitro preparations examine the factors that include growth of connections in the brain stem auditory pathways. A second research program addresses the problem of how experience influences brain development. Using manipulations of the amount and pattern of neuronal activity impinging on neurons in the brain stem auditory system of birds and mammals, we study the cellular nature of signals that influence the growth, remodeling, and maintenance of neuronal and glial elements. A third research program studies the cellular and molecular events involved in inner ear hair cell death due to environmental toxins or aging. In vivo and in vitro preparations of inner ear sensory epithelium are used to study death and cell survival pathways. A unique zebrafish mutagenesis and screening assay is used to discover genes and drugs that modulate inner ear hair cell responses to ototoxic drugs. The final research program stems from the discovery that birds can regenerate inner ear receptor cells (hair cells) following noise- or drug-induced hearing loss. Ongoing studies are aimed at determining the cellular and molecular events responsible for initiating hair cell regeneration and using hair cell regeneration to study plasticity of the avian brain.

Biophysical models of the response of auditory neurons have led to several promising signal processing strategies for cochlear implants to enhance speech and music perception. Our laboratory has developed methods to implement these strategies in cochlear implants and determine outcomes in human subjects. In addition, we have developed a variety of behavioral techniques to rapidly assess the benefits of enhanced signal processing. In a separate project we have developed a vestibular implant suitable for clinical trials and have performed the first such implants in human subjects. We are assessing both clinical efficacy of the device as well as performing basic studies of the response of the human vestibular system to electrical stimulation.

Eric's interests span a wide set of topics in mathematical neuroscience and biological dynamics. Recent work focuses on optimal signal processing and decision making in simple neural networks, dynamics of neural populations in interval timing tasks, correlations and reliability in simple neural circuits, and properties of oscillator networks with generalized symmetries. This work is supported by the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund (BWF) Scientific Interfaces Program, the NSF, and the Pacific Northwest Center for Neural Engineering.

The primary focus of the Sisneros lab is the investigation of seasonal reproductive-state and steroid-dependent plasticity of the adult auditory system in the plainfin midshipman fish (Porichthys notatus).

Dr. Tremblay and her research team are interested in auditory rehabilitation and study experience-related changes in the brain. Their program of research includes the effects of auditory deprivation (age-related hearing loss) and stimulation (hearing aids, cochlear implantation, and auditory training) on the brain. Hearing aids and cochlear implants help compensate for disorders of the ear, but successful rehabilitation also depends on the integrity of the central auditory system. Therefore, to learn more about the representation of sound in the brain, members of the Brain and Behavior lab use EEG methods to explore how sound is processed in the auditory systems of people with and without hearing loss.

Dr. Weaver focuses his clinical efforts on the surgical care of sleep disordered breathing (snoring and sleep apnea) at the UW Sleep Disorders Center at Harborview Medical Center. He also practices general otolaryngology at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System at American Lake and Seattle. Dr. Weaver studies treatment outcomes and health services in otolaryngology, with a special interest in sleep apnea, as an investigator in the UW Center for Cost & Outcomes Research.

My two areas of clinical care are the surgical management of chronic sinusitis and participation in the UW multi-disciplinary approach to patients with head and neck tumors