Research

In the lab of Dr. Ruili Xie, our primary focus is to better understand synaptic changes in auditory circuitry in mice with sensorineural hearing loss. We perform whole-cell patch-clamp recordings in the ventral cochlear nucleus of the auditory brain stem to investigate synaptopathy in the giant endbulb of Held synapse, which is degraded in both age-related and noise-induced hearing loss. My project expands on this line of investigation by exploring the contribution of chronic inflammation in both peripheral and central auditory circuitry during normal aging and following acoustic trauma in mice. My long-term goal is to identify new avenues for therapeutic interventions that modulate immune activity to prevent progressive hearing loss after early-life noise exposure and during normal aging.

Awards

2019 - Summer Graduate Research Award, The Ohio State University Center for Cognitive and Brain Sciences

2022 – Travel Award for the Association for Research in Otolaryngology MidWinter Meeting  

Publications

Prox, J., Seicol, B. J., Qi, H., Argall, A., Araya, N., Behnke, N., & Guo, L. (2021). Toward living neuroprosthetics: developing a biological brain pacemaker as a living neuromodulatory implant for improving parkinsonian symptoms. J Neural Eng. 18(4).

Wang, M., Zhang, C., Lin, S., Wang, Y., Seicol, B. J., Ariss, R. W., & Xie, R. (2021). Biased auditory nerve central synaptopathy is associated with age-related hearing loss. The Journal of physiology, 599(6), 1833–1854. (Selected for Cover)

Wu, Y., Wang, M., Wang, Y., Yang, H., Qi, H., Seicol, B. J., Xie, R., & Guo, L. (2020). A neuronal wiring platform through microridges for rationally engineered neural circuits. APL bioengineering, 4(4), 046106.

Mylonas, D., Baran, B., Demanuele, C., Cox, R., Vuper, T. C., Seicol, B. J., Fowler, R. A., Correll, D., Parr, E., Callahan, C. E., Morgan, A., Henderson, D., Vangel, M., Stickgold, R., & Manoach, D. S. (2020). The effects of eszopiclone on sleep spindles and memory consolidation in schizophrenia: a randomized clinical trial. Neuropsychopharmacology, 45(13), 2189–2197.

Seicol, B. J., Bejarano, S., Behnke, N., & Guo, L. (2019). Neuromodulation of metabolic functions: from pharmaceuticals to bioelectronics to biocircuits. Journal of biological engineering, 13, 67.

Seicol, B. J., Lin, S., & Xie, R. (2022). Age-Related Hearing Loss Is Accompanied by Chronic Inflammation in the Cochlea and the Cochlear Nucleus. Frontiers in aging neuroscience, 14, 846804.