Spring Research Day 2025

 

Title: Strabismus and Nystagmus: Potential Approaches for Developing New Treatments

Abstract: Childhood onset strabismus is a common disorder of eye alignment, and treatments often fail, particularly over time. Infantile nystagmus is also a relatively common disorder resulting in uncontrolled oscillatory movement of both eyes. Infantile nystagmus has no cure. Both can cause reduction in visual acuity. I will discuss the reasons for these failures and how recent studies suggest a different approach to their treatment. I will also discuss the “missing proprioceptor” from the eye muscles, and how our work sheds new light on understanding the ocular control of eye movements.

 

Bio: Dr. McLoon received her PhD from the Department of Anatomy at the University of Illinois Medical Center, followed by postdoctoral studies with Dr. Ray Lund at the University of Washington and Medical University of South Carolina. She is a tenured Professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Neurosciences. She studies pharmacologic approaches to the treatment of eye movement disorders in children, specifically strabismus and nystagmus. She is focused on the cell biology and muscle stem cell populations within the muscles that move the eyes in the orbit, the extraocular muscles, to understand their sparing in diseases such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy and what goes awry in eye movement disorders. Recently she has added an interest in sex differences in retinal function and how this relates to neuropsychiatric disease.

 

Title: Love, Death, and Cochlear Implants

Abstract: Neuroplasticity is important for learning the meaning of different sounds. Here I will discuss neuroplasticity and behavioral adaptations in rodents, first in new mother mice learning to care for pups, and then in deafened rats learning to use cochlear implants to hear again. I will discuss our previous work and newer results on maternal responses to infant distress calls, and how oxytocin enables rapid neurobehavioral changes for parents to recognize the meaning of these calls. We have built a new system combining 24/7 continuous video monitoring with neural recordings from the auditory cortex and oxytocin neurons of the hypothalamus in vivo. With this documentary approach, we have identified behaviors of experienced and naïve adults learning to co-parent together which also activate oxytocin neurons. Our new data show how co-parenting helps with the challenges of mouse maternity to ensure infant survival. Finally, I will discuss our on-going work on studying the neural basis of cochlear implant use, and the mechanisms of neuromodulation and plasticity required for deaf rats to behaviorally respond to implant stimulation.

 

Bio: Robert C. Froemke is a Professor in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at New York University. Dr. Froemke received his PhD from University of California, Berkeley, and performed postdoctoral research at University of California, San Francisco. His research studies how biological systems adapt and learn to improve behavior. His lab uses a range of techniques, including in vivo whole-cell recording, two-photon microscopy, whole-brain circuit mapping, long-term behavioral monitoring, and gene profiling, to ask three main questions, mostly in the auditory cortex of rodents.