Rebecca Seal, Ph.D.
Meet the Researcher
Seal is also recipient of the C.H.E.A.R. endowment, created to support an annual Sensory-Neural Deafness Research Grant. C.H.E.A.R. (Children Hearing Education and Research) was absorbed into Hearing Health Foundation in 1991, and we are very proud to continue their legacy of funding research in sensory-neural deafness.
The Research
University of Pittsburgh
Role of outer hair cell glutamate release in cochlear function and dysfunction
Outer hair cells are vital for normal hearing. Although the cells are known to amplify the cochlear response to sound using an electromotile mechanism, they also signal to type II spiral ganglion neurons through the regulated release of glutamate. However, the function of this signaling remains unknown. Similar to inner hair cells, glutamate signaling by outer hair cells may influence sound transmission as well as the maintenance of spiral ganglion afferents. In the adult, cholinergic efferents play a critical role in maintaining outer hair cell viability and the innervation pattern of these fibers may also be influenced by the released glutamate. Thus, there are several potential mechanisms by which loss of glutamate signaling by outer hair cells could cause hearing loss. This proposal aims to address these possibilities.
Research area: fundamental auditory research
Long-term goal of research: To provide new information about the role of hair cell signaling in hearing and in disorders of the auditory system including hearing loss. These analyses will inform decisions on therapeutic strategies for the restoration of hearing and for other disorders that may be derived from aberrant cochlear function.
Rebecca Seal Ph.D. received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Oregon Health and Sciences University and completed her postdoctoral training in sensory circuits at the University of California, San Francisco. She is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh.