Human patients with hearing impairment have difficulty in perceiving alerts, appreciating music and especially language-based conversation. This problem exists not only in deaf patients but also those with mental illness. Our research anticipates gaining a deeper understanding of the fundamental biological principles underlying auditory perception and pathological mechanisms of the normal and diseased hearing, which would thus accelerate the development of therapeutic approaches for preventing and treating deafness and hearing problems.
The laboratory is currently focusing on (1) Identification of novel deafness genes and characterization of the gene function, (2) Molecular and neural mechanisms underlying sound processing, and (3) Potential therapeutics to hearing impairment related with genetic mutations, noise, and ageing.
To achieve these goals, we recruit a variety of approaches and technologies: (1) Generating mouse models genetically and physiologically mimicking human patients with auditory deficiencies; (2) Developing finest in vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo neurophysiological approaches. These newly-established resources will be foundations to explore the mechanisms of auditory transduction and processing in the cochlea and the ascending brain stations, which is a long-term goal in the laboratory.
