Voltage-gated potassium (KV) currents play a crucial role in shaping and controlling the firing patterns that serve as the fundamental basis for the differential signal processing from the ear to the auditory cortex, with distinct firing patterns observed with high- and low-frequency phenotypes. This is an interesting phenomenon, in the sense that there is an organizational paradigm that creates a clear gradient according tofrequency; how this is shaped is a question that still remains to be answered. Pitch is an aspect of auditory perception that describes the frequency of the vibration of air, but to convert the differing frequencies to distinct perceptions requires a precise organizational schematic regarding the position of the neuronal connections and the precise and distinct firing patterns of which the signal distinction must be carried up throughout the central nervous system. Here, I focused on the KV currents and how neurotrophins, a class of growth factor proteins implicated in controlling all aspects of the role of the neuron in signal transductions, appear to control the KV currents by whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology. Biophysical principles are then used to simulate an aggregate amount of KV channels to discern the parameters by which neurotrophins affect functional phenotypes. Hence, this dissertation presents a study of the neurotrophic effects on the KV currents that give rise to distinct electrophysiological phenotypes that distinguish the perception of high-frequency sounds from that of the low-frequency ones.

Creator

• Takahashi, Momoko

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-hk4w-tr51

Subject

• Biophysics
• Neurosciences

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:16410
• etdadmin_upload_962033

Keyword

• Ising model
• auditory system
• Tonotopy
• action potential
• cochlear nucleus
• Potassium channel

Date created

• 2023-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright