Katrina
MacLeod, Ph.D
Assistant
Research Scientist
Department of
Biology
University of
Maryland
College Park, MD
20742
Research
The fundamental
problem of hearing
is
determining how a complex sound waveform can be interpreted by the
brain as the auditory world around us. All information about an
auditory scene is encoded in the auditory nerve, which projects to the
cochlear nuclei in the brainstem. At this level, different
types of information are extracted by different neural elements by
using synaptic and cellular specializations that decode the nerve
inputs. I am specifically interested in how timing and intensity
cues are extracted at the auditory nerve to cochlear nucleus synapse
and how short-term synaptic plasticity might contribute to this
process. Whole-cell patch-clamp recordings are made from acute
slices of the chick auditory brainstem, a model in vitro system for the
study of hearing. Physiological techniques are combined with
quantitive modeling of synaptic plasticity and biophysical membrane
properties in collaboration with the Horiuchi lab (Dept ECE and
Institute for Systems Research, UMCP) and the Simon lab (Depts of ECE
and Biol., UMCP).
Education
B.A.,
Johns Hopkins University, 1992
Ph.D.,
California Institute of Technology, 1999
Teaching
summer
instructor, Neural Systems and Behavior, Marine
Biological Lab., 2001-2006
Selected
publications
- MacLeod,
K.M., Horiuchi, T. and
Carr, C.E. (2007) A role for short-term facilitation and
depression in the processing of intensity information in the auditory
brainstem. J Neurophysiology 97: 2863-2974
- MacLeod,
K.M.,
Soares, D., Simon, J.Z. and Carr, C.E. (2006) Interaural timing
difference circuits in the auditory brainstem of the emu (Dromaius
novaehollandiae). J. Comp.
Neurol. 495: 185-201 pdf
- MacLeod,
K.M. and
Carr, C.E. (2005) Synaptic
properties in the
cochlear nucleus angularis of the
chick. J Neurophysiology,
93:2520-2529 doi:10.1152/jn.00898.2004. pdf
- Watt,A.J.,
van Rossum, M.C.W., MacLeod, K.M., Nelson, S.B., and Turrigiano,G.G.
(2000)
Activity co-regulates quantal AMPA and NMDA currents at neocortical
synapses.Neuron 26:659-670.
- MacLeod,
K., Bäcker,
A., and
Laurent, G. (1998) Who reads temporal information contained across
synchronized
and oscillatory spike trains? Nature 395
:693-698. pdf
- MacLeod,
K., and Laurent,
G. (1996)
Distinct mechanisms for synchronization and temporal patterning of
odor-encoding cell assemblies.Science
274:
976-979.
Support
NIH/NINDS, NIH/NIDCD,
Center for Comparative and
Evolutionary Biology of Hearing
Thank you to the NACS community!
Links
