Institute of Neuroscience Faculty

We study how local circuits in the cerebral cortex encode and transform sensory information. We use the rodent auditory cortex as a model system to investigate how cellular and network properties shape cortical responses to a continuous and temporally complex stream of sensory data. Research in my laboratory combines aspects of both cellular, systems, and computational neuroscience, by using the tools of molecular biology and cellular physiology to address systems-level questions. By using a variety of electrophysiological approaches, in particular in vivo whole cell recording methods in combination with molecular manipulations, we are trying to identify the cellular and synaptic mechanisms with which cortical circuits process auditory information, leading ultimately to our perceptual experiences of acoustic streams, such as music and speech.

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  Montgomery, N., and Wehr, M. (2010) Auditory cortical neurons convey maximal stimulus-specific information at their best frequency. J Neurosci 30:13362-13366 (PDF)
• Scholl, B., Gao, X.,and Wehr., M. (2010) Non-overlapping sets of synapses drive on-responses and off-responses in auditory cortex. Neuron, 65: 412-421

• Wehr, M., Hostick, U., Kyweriga, M., Tan, A., Weible, A., Wu, H., Wu, W., Callaway, E.M., and Kentros, C. (2009) Transgenic Silencing of Neurons in the Mammalian Brain by Expression of the Allatostatin Receptor (AlstR). J. Neurophys., 102 (2): 2554-62.

• Tan, A., and Wehr, M. (2009) Balanced tone-evoked synaptic excitation and inhibition in mouse auditory cortex. Neuroscience, 163 (4): 1302-15.

• Scholl, B. and Wehr, M. (2008): Disruption of Balanced Cortical Excitation and Inhibition by Acoustic Trauma. J. Neurophys., 100 (2): 646-56.

• Scholl, B., Gao, X., and Wehr., M. (2008): Level dependence of contextual modulation in auditory cortex. J. Neurophys., 99 (4): 1616-27.

• Wehr, M., and Zador, A. M. (2005): Synaptic mechanisms of forward masking in rat auditory cortex. Neuron, 47 (3): 437-45, Aug. 4, 2005.

• Wehr, M., and Zador, A. M. (2003): Balanced inhibition underlies tuning and sharpens spike timing in auditory cortex. Nature, 426: 442-446, Nov. 27, 2003

• DeWeese, M. R., Wehr, M., and Zador, A. M. (2003): Binary spiking in auditory cortex. J. Neuroscience, 23 (21): 7940-7949, Aug. 27, 2003

• Machens, C., Wehr, M., and Zador, A. M. (2003): Linearity of Receptive Fields Measured with Natural Sounds. J. Neuroscience, 24 (5): 1089-1100.

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• Department of Biology
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