Lukas Ian Schmitt, Ph.D., New York University, studies sensory abnormalities in the context of neurodevelopmental disorders like autism (ASD). Little is known about the neurobiology of sensory gating, and even less is known about its failure in disease. In this study, he will investigate how selective gating of information occurs in the thalamus, a structure which acts as a gateway through which most sensory input reaches higher order processing centers in the brain. The study focuses on the role of the thalamic reticular nucleus (TRN), the ‘guardian’ of the thalamic gateway. He will record neurons relaying auditory information through the thalamus in mice and assess the effect of suppressing the TRN on sensory representations of incoming sound stimuli, then study changes in sensory processing in a disease-relevant mouse model of TRN dysfunction.