Learning how to hear: The Influence of Early Sensory Experience and Action on Early Cortical Circuits

Abstract:

Our research aims to understand how experiences and interactions with the world shape the brain. We investigate how sensory representations and microcircuits in the cerebral cortex evolve over time and how they are influenced by experience of the world. Since hearing is a crucial sense for communication in both humans and animals, we focus on the auditory system. We utilize a variety of approaches from vivo 2-photon imaging to in vitro electrophysiology. Recent studies from our lab have uncovered insights into the early development and experience-driven plasticity of the auditory cortex pointing to a joint role of sensory experience and self-generated actions in early development.

The classical view is that the brain’s ability to process sounds is established during early development, refined through experience during a postnatal “critical period,” and further shaped by lifelong learning. Our findings reveal that the early developing cortex contains specialized circuits formed by subplate neurons. Functionally, we find that subplate neurons contain an early protomap of cortical organization and that these neurons provide an early substrate for experience-dependent changes, even before the traditional “critical period.” Moreover, our recent work indicate that self-generated actions contribute to the cortical neuronal activity in early development.

Thus, our results paint a more nuanced picture, suggesting that both sensory experiences and self-generated actions during early development, before the critical period, can have influences on brain function. Our current research focuses on unraveling the complex nature of these early life experiences and their long-term impact on auditory processing.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Patrick Kanold is a Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biology at the University of Maryland at College Park. He completed his MSc in Electrical Engineering at Technische Universität Berlin, his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, and his postdoctoral training in Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kanold has won numerous awards including the NARSAD Junior Investigator Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, and the Burt Evans Award from the National Organization for Hearing Research. His work focuses on how information is encoded in the mammalian brain, and his lab uses advanced imaging and electrophysiological approaches to dissect how cortical and thalamic circuits are altered by development, aging, and sensory experience. Through his research, Dr. Kanold has made significant advances to current understanding of cortical development, auditory coding, and cross-modal plasticity, and his work has important implications for the treatment of hearing disorders.