Regulation of Excitability in the Auditory System

Dr. Kaczmarek's studies of ion channel properties encompass cell physiological, molecular and computational approaches. Thus his work was deemed to be ideal for the retreat, because of the diversity of interests and approaches of members of the Center for Complex Systems. Dr. Kaczmarek began his lecture by summarizing studies on the cloning and characterization of a variety of neuronal potassium channels. These include channels with very different kinetic properties, that can influence in diverse ways the activity of the cells in which they are found. Dr. Kaczmarek has also produced computational models of ion channel activity that reproduce faithfully the biophysical properties of the biological channels. He then went on to describe experiments on ion channels in neurons of the mammalian auditory system. Auditory neurons must be specialized to respond to inputs of widely varying frequency, and Dr. Kaczmarek demonstrated that this can be attributed to the particular complement of voltage-dependent potassium channels present in sub-classes of auditory neurons. In particular, the inactivation kinetics of the potassium channels play a major role in the cell physiology of the neurons. Again, he brought computational approaches into play to demonstrate the role of potassium channels with particular properties in auditory neuron physiology. The use of realistic computational models, that are based at every stage on the real biology of the neurons and on the biophysical properties of the ion channels, provide new insight and understanding into the way the brain uses specific ion channel molecules to help encode auditory stimuli.

 

 

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