The life and times of a comparative bioacoustician

My Comparative Bioacoustics Laboratory investigates acoustic communication in animals. We conduct psychoacoustic studies of hearing using operant conditioning techniques, we perform preference tests in naïve animals, and we record sonic and ultrasonic vocalizations from our subjects in various contexts. Current lines of investigation in the mouse lab include simple measures of auditory processing such as time and intensity perception, the perception of ultrasonic vocalizations, the role of noise in masking of simple and complex signals, and the preference for certain vocalizations over others. We also measure hearing across the lifespan in different strains of mice, including genetic knockouts for Alzheimer’s and Autism Spectrum Disorder. These studies are designed to better understand acoustic communication in animals across the lifespan and also serve as valuable tools to validate the mouse as a model for studies on aging and the environmental and genetic factors involved in hearing loss. [Work supported by NIH AG081747.]