Student Perceptions of Superimposed Mixed Reality Anatomy: A Bridge Between the Virtual and Physical.

A prototype mixed reality model was developed in which three-dimensional holograms of musculoskeletal anatomy were superimposed over a physical skeleton model, conferring tactile sensation to the bony attachments of virtually observed muscles. Fifty-three second-year medical students piloted this innovative format and provided feedback on its effectiveness as a learning modality.

Altered brainstem auditory evoked potentials in a rat central sensitization model are similar to those in migraine.

Migraine symptoms often include auditory discomfort. Nitroglycerin (NTG)-triggered central sensitization (CS) provides a rodent model of migraine, but auditory brainstem pathways have not yet been studied in this example. Our objective was to examine brainstem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) in rat CS as a measure of possible auditory abnormalities.

Slc4a11 gene disruption in mice: cellular targets of sensorineuronal abnormalities.

NaBC1 (the SLC4A11 gene) belongs to the SLC4 family of sodium-coupled bicarbonate (carbonate) transporter proteins and functions as an electrogenic sodium borate cotransporter. Mutations in SLC4A11 cause either corneal abnormalities (corneal hereditary dystrophy type 2) or a combined auditory and visual impairment (Harboyan syndrome). The role of NaBC1 in sensory systems is poorly understood, given the difficulty of studying patients with NaBC1 mutations.

Binaural unmasking of frequency-following responses in rat amygdala.

Survival in natural environments for small animals such as rats often depends on precise neural coding of life-threatening acoustic signals, and binaural unmasking of species-specific pain calls is especially critical. This study investigated how species-specific tail-pain chatter is represented in the rat amygdala, which receives afferents from both auditory thalamus and auditory association cortex, and whether the amygdaloid representation of the chatter can be binaurally unmasked. The results show that chatter with a fundamental frequency (F0) of 2.

Auditory frequency-following responses in rat ipsilateral inferior colliculus.

Auditory frequency-following responses (FFRs) are sustained potentials based on phase-locked neural activity preserving low-frequency information. Some neurons in rat inferior colliculus are excited by stimuli at either ear. This study shows that FFRs in inferior colliculus can be elicited by presenting pure tone bursts with frequencies from 225 to 4025 Hz at the ipsilateral ear in anesthetized rats.

Ultrasonic evoked responses in rat cochlear nucleus.

Numerous studies have reported auditory brainstem responses evoked by stimuli within the "normal" hearing range of rats, with maximum sensitivity peaking around 16 kHz. Yet rats also emit and respond to sounds in the ultrasonic (US) frequency range (30-100 kHz). However, very few electrophysiological studies have recorded auditory brainstem responses using US stimuli, and none have exceeded 70 kHz.

Neural crest cell deficiency of c-myc causes skull and hearing defects.

The proto-oncogene c-myc has a central role in multiple processes important for embryonic development, including cell proliferation, growth, apoptosis, and differentiation. We have investigated the role of c-myc in neural crest by using Wnt1-Cre-mediated deletion of a conditional mutation of the c-myc gene. c-myc deficiency in neural crest resulted in viable adult mice that have defects in coat color, skull frontal bone, and middle ear ossicle development.

Auditory evoked responses in the rat: transverse mastoid needle electrodes register before cochlear nucleus and do not reflect later inferior colliculus activity.

A previously described technique putatively differentiates short-latency auditory evoked potentials in peripheral and central neural pathways of the mouse and rat [Galbraith G, Waschek J, Armstrong B, Edmond J, Lopez I, Liu W, et al. Murine auditory brainstem evoked response: putative two-channel differentiation of peripheral and central neural pathways. J Neurosci Methods 2006;153:214-20].

Murine auditory brainstem evoked response: putative two-channel differentiation of peripheral and central neural pathways.

Standard noninvasive recordings of the auditory brainstem evoked response (ABR) from a single pair of obliquely oriented electrodes (typically midline vertex referenced to mastoid) confound inherently distinct signals propagating over peripheral and central neural pathways differing in location and spatial orientation. We describe here a technique for recording short-latency auditory evoked potentials that putatively differentiates peripheral and central neural activity in the mouse and rat. The technique involves recording from two orthogonally oriented electrode pairs using fast sample rates (100 k/s) to accurately measure differences in neural timing and waveform morphology.

Time course of auditory impairment in mice lacking the electroneutral sodium bicarbonate cotransporter NBC3 (slc4a7).

Mice with a targeted disruption of the gene encoding the stilbene-insensitive electroneutral sodium bicarbonate cotransporter (NBC3; slc4a7) exhibit cochlear and retinal degeneration. To establish the progressive nature of sensory cells loss in slc4a7-/- deficient mice, we studied the morphology of cochleas of slc4a7-/- and slc4a7+/+ mice from postnatal day two (P2) to ninety (P90). Cell death was evaluated in slc4a7-/- cochleas using the TUNEL technique and caspase-3 immunoreactivity.

Correlated brain stem and cortical evoked responses to auditory tone change.

Numerous human studies have separately observed the effects of auditory stimuli at brain stem and cortical levels, but little research has focused on possible functional coupling between these diverse brain areas. The present study recorded the cortical C-process [5] evoked by a pitch change between two successive tones, as well as the brain stem frequency-following response (FFR) evoked by each tone. The results replicated expected C-process component waveforms, including a late, negative (N2) component.

Brain stem evoked response to forward and reversed speech in humans.

Speech stimuli played in reverse are perceived as unfamiliar and alien-sounding, even though phoneme duration and fundamental voicing frequency are preserved. Although language perception ultimately resides in the neocortex, the brain stem plays a vital role in processing auditory information, including speech. The present study measured brain stem frequency-following responses (FFR) evoked by forward and reverse speech stimuli recorded from electrodes oriented horizontally and vertically to measure signals with putative origins in auditory nerve and rostral brain stem, respectively.

Blindness and auditory impairment caused by loss of the sodium bicarbonate cotransporter NBC3.

Normal sensory transduction requires the efficient disposal of acid (H+) generated by neuronal and sensory receptor activity. Multiple highly sensitive transport mechanisms have evolved in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms to maintain acidity within strict limits. It is currently assumed that the multiplicity of these processes provides a biological robustness.

Selective attention affects human brain stem frequency-following response.

Selective attention modifies long-latency cortical event-related potentials. Amplitudes are typically enhanced and/or latencies reduced when evoking stimuli are attended. However, there is controversy concerning the effects of selective attention on short-latency brain stem evoked potentials.