Washington University in St. Louis (WU)
My research program seeks to understand the neural circuits underlying vocal communication, their development, and their dysfunction in communication disorders. We use lateralization as a comparative tool to reveal molecular, structural, and functional differences between the left and right auditory cortex. Our focus is on mice, a viable model system for studying vocal communication mechanisms due to their complex vocal repertoire and auditory plasticity. Employing electrophysiological, optogenetic, anatomical, and behavioral techniques, we have identified lateralized circuit motifs and corresponding functions in auditory processing. Our findings show differences in timing between the left and right auditory cortex during the critical period of plasticity around hearing onset. I plan to use these insights to examine neural mechanisms for vocalization processing and their impairment in autism mouse models.