Charles Anderson, PhD

Research Interests

The external world strongly influences how our sensory systems process information. Auditory neurons demonstrate remarkable selectivity for a restricted set of sound features, and they can maintain this selectivity across a wide range of acoustic environments. These fundamental aspects of auditory processing are of great importance for understanding how the auditory system accurately encodes complex sounds, such as speech. My research is focused on uncovering the synaptic and circuit-level mechanisms that support these abilities. I'm particularly interested in cortical mechanisms that enhance or suppress the neuronal representation of specific features of sounds because this allows neurons to fine-tune their receptive fields, a key feature of cortical sound encoding. I utilize 2-photon calcium imaging in awake animals, whole-cell patch clamp electrophysiology in acute brain slices, transgenic animal models, optogenetic stimulation, and animal behavioral assays to address these questions.

Publications

[2023]

• Bender PTR, McCollum M, Boyd-Pratt H, Mendelson BZ, Anderson CT, (in press). Specific zinc potentiates AMPA receptor function in mouse auditory cortex. Cell Reports.
• Wu T, Manoj K, Zhang J, Shao S, Drobizhev M, McCollum M, Anderson CT, Wang Y, Almeida A, Tian X, Zhang Y, Tzounopoulos T, Ai H (2023). A genetically encoded far-red fluorescent indicator for imaging synaptically-released Zn2+. Science Advances. 9(9): eadd2058.

[2019]

• Kumar M, Xiong S, Tzounopoulos T, Anderson CT, (2019). Fine Control of Sound Frequency Tuning and Frequency Discrimination Acuity by Synaptic Zinc Signaling in Mouse Auditory Cortex.. J Neurosci.1339-18.

[2017]

• Anderson CT*, Kumar M*, Xiong S, Tzounopoulos T (2017). Cell-specific gain modulation by synaptically released zinc in cortical circuits of audition. eLife2017;6:e29893. *Equal contribution
• Yeh CY, Bulas AM, Moutal A, Saloman JL, Hartnett KA, Anderson CT, Tzounopoulos T, Sun D, Khanna R, Aizenman E (2017). Targeting a Potassium Channel/Syntaxin Interaction Ameliorates Cell Death in Ischemic Stroke.. J Neurosci. 37(23):5648-5658.

[2016]

• Joshi A, Kalappa BI, Anderson CT, Tzounopoulos T (2016). Cell-specific cholinergic modulation of excitability of layer 5B principal neurons in mouse auditory cortex. Journal of Neuroscience, 0780-16.2016.

[2015]

• Kalappa BI, Anderson CT, Goldberg J, Lippard SJ, Tzounopoulos T (2015). AMPA receptor inhibition by synaptically released zinc. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; doi: 10.1073/pnas.1512296112
• Zastrow ML, Radford RJ, Wen C, Anderson CT, Zhang DY, Loas A, Tzounopoulos T, Lippard SJ (2015). Reaction-based probes for imaging mobile zinc in live cells and tissues. Journal of the American Chemical Society: Sensors doi: 10.1021/acssensors.5b00022.
• Anderson CT, Radford RJ, Zastrow ML, Zhang DY, Apfel U, Lippard SJ, Tzounopoulos T (2015). Modulation of extrasynaptic NMDA receptors by synaptic and tonic zinc. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; E2705–E2714, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1503348112.
• Perez-Rosello T, Anderson CT, Ling C, Lippard SJ, Tzounopoulos T (2015). Tonic zinc inhibits spontaneous neuronal firing in dorsal cochlear nucleus principal neurons by enhancing glycinergic neurotransmission. Neurobiology of Disease; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nbd.2015.03.012.
• Joshi A, Middleton JW, Anderson CT, Borges K, Suter BA, Shepherd GM, Tzounopoulos T. (2015) Cell-specific activity-dependent fractionation of layer 2/3→5B excitatory signaling in mouse auditory cortex. Journal of Neuroscience; 35(7):3112-23.

[2013]

• Perez-Rosello T, Anderson CT, Schopfer FJ, Zhao Y, Gilad D, Salvatore SR, Freeman BA, Hershfinkel M, Aizenman E, Tzounopoulos T. (2013) Synaptic Zn2+ inhibits neurotransmitter release by promoting endocannabinoid synthesis. Journal of Neuroscience; 33(22):9259-72.

[2012]

• Srivastava DP, Woolfrey KM, Jones KA, Anderson CT, Smith KR, Russell TA, Lee H, Yasvoina MV, Wokosin DL, Ozdinler PH, Shepherd GM, Penzes P. (2012) An autism-associated variant of Epac2 reveals a role for Ras/Epac2 signaling in controlling basal dendrite maintenance in mice. PLoS Biology; 10(6) :e1001350.

[2011]

• Qiu S*, Anderson CT*, Levitt P, Shepherd GMG. (2011) Circuit-specific intracortical hyperconnectivity in mice with deletion of the autism-associated Met receptor tyrosine kinase. Journal of Neuroscience; 31(15): 5855-5864. *Equal contribution

[2010]

• Anderson CT*, Sheets PL*, Kiritani T, Shepherd GMG. (2010) Sublayer-specific microcircuits of corticospinal and corticostriatal neurons in motor cortex. Nature Neuroscience; 13: 739-744. *Equal contribution
• Homma K, Miller KK, Anderson CT, Sengupta S, Du GG, Aguiñaga S, Cheatham M, Dallos P, Zheng J (2010) Interaction between CFTR and prestin (SLC26A5). Biochimica et Biophysica Acta 1798:1029-1040.