Nikollas Benites is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of South Florida. His research focuses on studying fundamental developmental mechanisms of the auditory nervous system. In this Postdoc Portrait, he shares the motivation behind his work and how it may help researchers to better understand neurodevelopmental disorders that have the auditory system involved, such as autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
Investigating Auditory Circuit Development
Q | What drew you to studying the auditory system?
I started my research in Brazil, where I earned my pharmacy degree and began my master's in pharmaceutical sciences. But behind the scientist, I am a musician, too. One of my experiments during my master's involved a technique called patch clamp. I loved it. The professor who was helping me studied the auditory system. So, I put together two passions, science and music, in my PhD studies. After four years, I earned my degree and decided to continue my career by studying the largest nerve terminal in the mammalian brain, here in the United States. The auditory system is the fastest sensory system, and that is fascinating. As in an orchestra, all the instruments must be tuned. In this case, the instruments are the brain nuclei. All this fine-tuning starts before the day of birth. Studying the development of this system is complex, as in a good song.
Q | What scientific problem are you trying to solve?
The development of the sensory systems is not well understood. In my current research, we are striving to discover the mechanism behind the auditory nervous system development. Our main goal is to dissect communication between the largest nerve terminal in the mammalian brain, the calyx of Held, with its partner, the principal neuron in the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body (MNTB). This region of the brain is responsible for detecting the source of a sound in the horizontal plane. You know if an alarm is far to your right or left, because of this nucleus in the brainstem. Knowing how normal development occurs could help researchers to better understand some neurodevelopmental disorders that have the auditory system involved, such as autism and even ADHD.
Q | What’s one thing you learned from your research that you didn’t expect?
We thought that sensory experience in the auditory system triggers the expression of many transcription factors. So, we blocked that in our research model. Surprisingly, the neurons on the MNTB keep going, even with a delay in development. We used a computational model to explain what was happening, and that was completely new to me. I need to learn a lot more about coding, statistics, and clustering analysis. We found that a specific ion channel, Kv4, could be overexpressed when we blocked pre-sensory spontaneous activity. In addition, some transcription factors that should increase only in response to spontaneous activity might be overexpressed in its absence.
Responses have been edited for length and clarity.
Are you a researcher who would like to be featured in the “Postdoc Portraits” series? Send in your application here.
