Contact
Department: Department of Biology, Chemistry, Pharmacy
Email:
ursula.koch@fu-berlin.de
Website:
Research Group
Project
B03 until 12/2013
About project B03 (since 01/2014 merged into one project with B01)
Principal investigators: Christian Leibold, Ursula Koch
Project title: Functional adjustment of neuronal circuits: Tonotopic gradients of timeprocessing auditory brainstem neurones
Summary: Neurons receive information about the functional relevance of their outputs via local signals that are indirectly related to the objectives on the systems level. Mechanisms underlying this functional adjustment are usually based on local teacher signals. Here we investigated functional adjustment using the frequency dependence of interaural-time-difference (ITD) sensitivity in the medial superior olive (MSO). We have characterized a biophysical parameter, the density of HCN channels, that is organized in a tonotopic gradient. Modelling revealed a physiological function of this gradient: It cancels the temporal summation of the IPSPs in a frequency dependent manner. Moreover, we developed a new model of MSO cell excitability to be able to predict activity-dependent signals in the future.
About project B01 (ongoing)