Comparative Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory - Honours projects available in 2010
An Honours project undertaken in this lab would be administered by the Discipline of Physiology.
Our research aims to understand how the sensory and nervous systems of animals work and how they evolved within the context of their environment. What is the system capable of and how did it arrive there? How do different evolutionary solutions to the same problem compare and what can we learn from this with respect to human functions, both normal and diseased?
- Evolution of the cochlear efferent system
Supervisor + contact details:
- Dr Christine Koeppl
An important part of the peripheral auditory system is the feedback control returning from the brain to the sensory cells of the cochlea, termed the efferent system. The efferent system in mammals (and humans) is complex and its functions are only partly known. Our approach is to study the different and mostly simpler forms of the efferent system in a variety of other vertebrate animals. This will enable us to separate its common, basic properties from more specialised functions added later in evolution. You could do an Honours Project testing for subgroups of efferent neurones in birds, using neuroanatomical labelling techniques.
- The basis of fast temporal processing in the cochlea of the barn owl
Supervisor + contact details:
- Dr Christine Koeppl
The barn owl is the absolute champion with regard to fast temporal processing and using minute interaural time differences for localizing sound sources in space. However, it is merely an extreme example of a more general, basic mechanism that is used by most animals, including humans. We are interested in how the inner ear manages to code the temporal structure of sound with the incredible precision observed - in the case of the owl about 20 microseconds! In this project we will investigate the ultrastructure of the very special synapses, so-called ribbon synapses, between the sensory hair cells and the afferent neurons, using transmission electron microscopy.
