See Also: NRC Membership Listing > Vision and Sensory Processing

Numerous senses such as seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching hold the key to our interaction with the outside world. While our ability to perform such basic functions is often taken for granted, scientists at UT-Houston are studying exactly how our senses work. Specialized nerve cells known as sensory receptors interpret outside stimuli for us. The sight of a sunrise, the smell of a rose, the sound of traffic … receptors trigger the body to process these images. Sensory receptors convert a sensory stimulus, such as sound, into electrical impulses. This method of conversion is similar among all the sensory stimuli, including sight, sound, pain, temperature, touch, smell, and balance.

Researchers at UT-Houston are studying the way sensory stimuli are converted into electrical impulses, along with genetic defects that hinder this process, leading to conditions such as blindness and deafness. Extensive processing of these signals occurs before they produce any sensation, and in many cases, a good deal of information never reaches our consciousness. The sensory receptors and the way they generate nerve impulses, thereby making the body aware of the stimulus, share many common features, no matter what the sensory stimulus they are interpreting may be. Each of the different senses conveys its information to the brain by using nerve cells that are arranged in pathways that run parallel to one another. This parallel organization conveys individual features of a stimulus, such as color and shape, to the brain simultaneously.

UT-Houston scientists are studying this “parallel processing” phenomenon in order to add to our understanding of sensory information processing in general, to treat disorders of sensory processing in patients, and to develop better devices that process sensory information in patients who have sensory deficits. More than 40 faculty members at UT-Houston conduct sensory processing research at every level of organization, from molecules to complex systems. Some study how sensory stimuli are interpreted in bacteria, while others examine the process in animals and humans.

Our research covers several topics. For example, we study how the brain deals with pain, in order to develop pain-suppressing drugs and therapies based on the brain’s system for pain suppression.

We also study hearing by monitoring the responses of receptors in the cochlea of the ear to sounds, and analyzing how the resulting signal is processed in the auditory processing centers in the brainstem.

We can view brain activity as it processes language, music and other sounds by using a new technique known as magnetoencephalography, a non-invasive imaging technique that has been used to study the brains of stroke patients and children with learning disabilities.

We are also studying the development and function of the eye and visual areas of the brain, which may someday lead to prevention and treatment of eye diseases.