Terrestrial animals use binaural processing to help them detect, discriminate, locate, and segregate sounds sources. All regions of the central auditory system participate in the computations used for these general tasks of hearing, but several nuclei of the mammalian and avian brainstem have been most intensively studied with respect to binaural processing. Recent observations on fishes, including behavior, central auditory system morphology and peripheral and central neurophysiology converge in suggesting not only that the flow of information from the periphery to the epencephalon follows the same general pattern in all classes of jawed vertebrates, but that the sense of hearing itself may be homologous within these taxa, having first developed among early fishes. This, in turn, suggests that binaural processing may have first developed in early fishes, too. In this proposal, we aim to systematically investigate, for the first time, the strategies and mechanisms of binaural hearing in a fish (oyster toadfish - Opsanus tau). These studies using combinations of natural acoustic and bilateral mechanical otolith manipulation, in vivo, will provide the first systematic description and analysis of binaural processing in a fish, and will help determine what binaural mechanisms observed in terrestrial animals are primitive, or shared among vertebrates, and what mechanisms are likely to have been more recently derived. We hypothesize that several fundamental structural and functional aspects of binaural processing are primitive vertebrate characters and we expect them to be primitively revealed in the auditory brainstem of fishes. This work will contribute to our understanding of the evolution of auditory systems and the sense of hearing, and thereby help establish a biological and evolutionary context within which human hearing and animal models for human hearing can be better understood and applied.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01DC006215-02
Application #
6917154
Study Section
Auditory System Study Section (AUD)
Program Officer
Luethke, Lynn E
Project Start
2004-07-01
Project End
2009-05-31
Budget Start
2005-06-01
Budget End
2006-05-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2005
Total Cost
$222,000
Indirect Cost
Name
Loyola University Chicago
Department
Type
Organized Research Units
DUNS #
074368911
City
Chicago
State
IL
Country
United States
Zip Code
60660
Walton, Peggy L; Christensen-Dalsgaard, Jakob; Carr, Catherine E (2017) Evolution of Sound Source Localization Circuits in the Nonmammalian Vertebrate Brainstem. Brain Behav Evol 90:131-153
Edds-Walton, Peggy L; Matos, Solymar Rivera; Fay, Richard R (2013) Does the magnocellular octaval nucleus process auditory information in the toadfish, Opsanus tau? J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol 199:353-63
Meyer, Michaela; Popper, Arthur N; Fay, Richard R (2012) Coding of sound direction in the auditory periphery of the lake sturgeon, Acipenser fulvescens. J Neurophysiol 107:658-65
Meyer, Michaela; Fay, Richard R; Popper, Arthur N (2010) Frequency tuning and intensity coding of sound in the auditory periphery of the lake sturgeon, Acipenser fulvescens. J Exp Biol 213:1567-78
Edds-Walton, Peggy L; Holstein, Gay R; Fay, Richard R (2010) Gamma-aminobutyric acid is a neurotransmitter in the auditory pathway of oyster toadfish, Opsanus tau. Hear Res 262:45-55
Edds-Walton, Peggy L; Fay, Richard R (2005) Sharpening of directional responses along the auditory pathway of the oyster toadfish, Opsanus tau. J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol 191:1079-86