JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Grant: $289,980 - National Institutes of Health - Sep. 17, 2009
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Award Description: Understanding the neural mechanisms of tinnitus. The grant supports personnel and equipment needed to carry out an investigation into the neural activity in the brain that may underly tinnitus. Tinnitus is a phantom sound percept that occurs in many older persons and persons with damage to the ear, such as that from acoustic trauma. We plan to investigate a specific hypothesis of tinnitus generation.
Project Description: The plan for this project is to test for a relationship between behavioral signs of tinnitus in rats exposed to loud sounds and compare the behavioral extent of behavioral tinnitus to disorders of neural spike trains in the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN). The DCN is chosen for this work because of previous evidence that associates it with tinnitus. We will look for signs of elevated spontaneous rate, increased bursting, elevated randomness of spontaneous activity, and increased correlation of discharge between neurons. The first two are standard hypotheses for the generation of tinnitus. The latter two are new ideas developed in our laboratory based on previous research. The expected outcome of these experiments is a clear conclusion as to whether tinnitus correlates with abnormal DCN activity and evidence as to the nature of the relevant DCN activity.
Infrastructure Description: n/a
Jobs Summary: No jobs were created or retained. (Total jobs reported: 0)
Project Status: Less Than 50% Completed
This award's data was last updated on Sep. 17, 2009. Help expand these official descriptions using the wiki below.
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