Areas of Research
Auditory neurons demonstrate remarkable selectivity for a restricted set of sound features, and they can maintain this selectivity across a wide range of auditory environments. These abilities are fundamental for auditory processing and are of great interest for understanding how the auditory cortex accurately encodes complex sounds, such as speech. My research is focused on uncovering the synaptic and circuit-level mechanisms that that support these abilities. I am particularly interested in cortical mechanisms that can enhance or suppress the neuronal representation of specific features of sounds because these allow neurons to fine-tune their receptive fields, a key feature of cortical sound encoding. I utilize 2-photon calcium imaging in awake animals, brain slice electrophysiology, optogenetic manipulations, and animal behavioral assays to address these questions.
People
Charles T. Anderson, PhD
Principal Investigator
Associate Professor, Neuroscience
2012-2017, Postdoc, University of Pittsburgh
2012, PhD, Northwestern University
2004, BA, Carleton College
Kaitlin Bainer
PhD Student, Neuroscience
2023, BS, West Virginia University
Emma Trate
PhD Student, Neuroscience
2024, BA, Shippensburg University
