The 2019-2020 Amelia Peabody Scholarship has been awarded jointly to Janani Iyer and Kameron Clayton, G3 and G4 students, respectively, in the Harvard Speech and Hearing Bioscience and Technology (SHBT) Program.
Jan is doing her doctoral research jointly with Dr. Konstantina Stankovic of the Department of Otolaryngology at Massachusetts Eye and Ear (MEE) and Dr. Guillermo Tearney of the Department of Pathology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Jan’s research aims at developing new techniques for high-resolution, 3D imaging of the human cochlea using two complementary approaches. Using micro optical coherence tomography (μOCT), which gives higher depth of focus than conventional OCT, Jan has been the first to image individual cells of the human inner ear in intact temporal bone preparations. She is currently developing a sub-millimeter, flexible endoscopic probe that would allow imaging of cellular structures of the cochlea in human patients. In parallel studies, Jan is using a novel X-ray-based imaging technique that leverages the capability of a synchrotron particle accelerator for high-resolution, 3D imaging of the cochlea in human temporal bones. This new technique has the potential of replacing laborious histologic processing as the gold standard for evaluating cochlear structures in temporal bones. This work is done in part at the Canadian Light Source synchrotron radiation facility in Saskatoon. Jan has published her research findings in Biomedical Optics Express and Science Reports.
Kameron is working in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Polley at MEE. His research aims at understanding the neural circuits that modulate auditory perception based on expectations. Such “top-down” processing is critical for understanding speech in challenging acoustic environments. Having shown that knowing when a sound stimulus will occur greatly improves sound detection and frequency discrimination in mice, Kameron is testing the hypothesis that the perceptual benefits of temporal expectation are due to the activation of corticothalamic cells in the auditory cortex. His research combines several cutting-edge techniques, such as two-photon imaging to simultaneous track the activity of hundreds of neurons, extracellular recordings from optogenetically identified corticothalamic neurons, and a new molecular anatomical approach to identify monosynaptic connections that target corticothalamic cells. Kameron has presented his research findings at the meeting of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology. He has also published three papers based on work related to the “cocktail party problem” he did in the laboratory of Dr. Gerald Kidd at Boston University prior to joining the SHBT program.
The Amelia Peabody Scholarship was established in 2008 through a generous donation to support SHBT students working with MEE faculty. The selection was done by a committee consisting of Dr. Bradley Welling (MEE, Chair), Dr. Bertrand Delgutte (MEE), Dr. Evelina Fedorenko (MIT), Dr. Sunil Puria (MEE), and Dr. Kristina Simonyan (MEE).