Central auditory processing and learning

A Deafness Research UK PhD studentship has been awarded to Professor Andrew King at Oxford University to carry out research into the functional role of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine in central auditory processing and learning.

[PhD Studentship, 2006-2009]

Previous research has shown that the brain is to some extent 'plastic', in that it can adapt to changes in the stimulants that reach it, and react differently accordingly. For example, when hearing loss occurs in one ear, at first it is impossible to discriminate where sounds are coming from, but as the brain gets used to changes in the sounds that reach it, it can be re-trained to localise sounds. The team at Oxford have been testing the idea that acetylcholine may be responsible for the brain’s ability to adapt to a deterioration in what we hear.

In this study, the student, Nick Leach, is currently testing ferrets on auditory discrimination, or, in other words, their ability to localise specific sounds. They started off  by looking at the effects of removing the neurotransmitter to see if these can be reversed by its re-introduction. This would prove definitively that acetylcholine is involved in cortically mediated learning. Currently, the team are enlarging their experimental groups and continuing their research.     

Nick Leach is also the winner of the 2010 Pauline Ashley Prize, and will visit Professor Shihab Shamma at the University of Washington in Baltimore as part of his doctoral research (see Exceptional young scientist wins acclaimed Pauline Ashley Prize for further deatils).                                             

Brain plasticity and its relationship to learning and memory are cutting edge research areas and it is hoped that this study will improve our knowledge of the way in which sensory information is processed at higher levels of the brain and the mechanisms responsible for auditory perceptual learning.

The reorganisation of the brain is considered by some researchers to be a cause of tinnitus, and this research could also contribute to the further understanding and treatment of conditions such as auditory learning disorders and Central Auditory Processing disorders.