TECHNOLOGICAL
FACILITIES
Imaging facilities
The imaging facility is a key technological tool comprising a set of instruments enabling the researchers of the Hearing Institute to study samples at different scales, from whole organs right down to the details of intracellular structures. It also offers help and advice for the acquisition, processing, analysis and interpretation of images.
Thanks to light and electron imaging methods, and with the aid of specific fluorescent markers, researchers can study the morphological and functional differences essential to our understanding of the roles of genes and proteins in hearing impairment.
The Auditory Phenotyping platform provides electrophysiology and behavior setups that allow determining the auditory and vestibular profile of various mouse models in order to understand the functioning of the auditory system.
The development of the auditory phenotyping facility is based essentially on close collaboration with the CERIAH (the Center for Research and Innovation in Human Audiology), which designs and performs research protocols involving human subjects, to characterize auditory and vestibular functions. This collaboration makes possible the parallel development of protocols for studies in humans and animal models. The continuity of approaches will make it possible to obtain fully comparable data and to reach transposable conclusions.
Phenotyping facilities
Data acquisition and signal processing facility
The Hearing Institute has a data acquisition and signal processing facility, operating at the interface between research teams and the other platforms of the Institute. Its objective is to create and manage tools providing interfacing and analysis solutions for the extraction of the multidimensional and multimodal data generated by the research projects performed at the Institute. This facility is currently under construction. It aims to maintain expertise in technical implementation, and in the analysis of imaging, electrophysiological and behavioral experiments.
Cell culture
Since October 2022, the Imaging facility acquired a sample preparation service.
The cell culture platform of The Hearing Institute is composed of 3 laboratories L2. These laboratories can be used by the researchers to manipulate animal and human tissues as well as viral vectors. A training is necessary.
The histology platform is equipped with a vibratome and two cryostats. Once users are trained, they can use these devices with total independence.
Electrophysiology
The installations of the electrophysiology platform of The Hearing Institute are designed for characterization of the physiology and functioning of the auditory system of mouse models reproducing the hearing impairments described in patients. This equipment can be used, in particular, for extracellular recordings of neuronal activity, the characterization of electrical currents carried by ion channels (patch-clamp experiments) and for testing synaptic exocytosis in these models.
