WKU Biologist Receives Neuroscience Mentoring Grant For Research On How Noise Affects Hearing In Fish Species

March 22, 2007

Bowling Green, Ky. -A Western Kentucky University biology faculty member has received a neuroscience mentoring grant for a project to study how loud underwater noise affects the hearing in three species of fishes.

Dr. Michael Smith, an assistant professor in WKU’s Biology Department, has been awarded a SOMAS (Support Of Mentors And their Students) grant to mentor Reagan Gilley, a junior from Pineville, Ky., this summer in research on the auditory system of fishes.

Dr. Smith was one of six recipients selected from more than 50 applicants to the SOMAS program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and coordinated by Davidson College in North Carolina. The program’s purpose is to engage undergraduate students in conducting original neuroscience research collaborations and to provide support and training to faculty mentors.

In research on the effects of loud, man-made sounds (such as those produced by sonar, seismic survey and shipping) on aquatic organisms, Gilley and Dr. Smith will examine how loud underwater sounds affect goldfish, silver perch and rainbow trout.

Fish will be exposed to various combinations of intensity and duration of noise and hearing tests will be performed on each fish before and after noise exposure to quantify hearing loss. The ability to predict hearing loss in fishes will allow fisheries managers to better assess environmental impacts of anthropogenic underwater sounds.

Hearing tests will be done using a technique called the auditory brainstem response (ABR), in which brain waves are recorded through electrodes while the fish listens to tones. This technique is similar to that done in hospitals to test hearing in newborn human babies.

The SOMAS program (http://www.somasprogram.org/) provides funds for research supplies, summer stipends for both Gilley and Dr. Smith, and travel support to present their research at the Annual Meetings of the Society for Neuroscience and Faculty for Undergraduate Neuroscience in Washington, D.C.
               
More WKU news is available at www.wku.edu. If you’d like to receive WKU news via e-mail, send a message to WKUNews@wku.edu

For information, contact Michael Smith at (270) 745-2405.