Physiological insights from molecular analyses of neurons and synapses in the cochlear nucleus

The cochlear nuclear complex receives its input from the auditory nerve and is the first station of auditory processing in the brain. Rather than merely relaying signals, it uses diverse neuronal cell types to initiate pathways for extracting information from the acoustic world. We performed an RNAseq analysis of each of these cell types in conjunction with physiological and morphological analyses, relating patterns of gene expression to cellular properties. Combined with prior studies of synaptic gene expression in spiral ganglion neurons, we gain new insights to auditory function and dysfunction.