Anna Dondzillo, PhD

Recognitions

• Travel Award, Society for Neuroscience (2014)
• Best Postdoctoral Poster Presentation Award, Annual Neuroscience Conference (2012)

Research Interests

Anna Dondzillo, PhD is a neuroscientist interested in signal processing in the aging auditory system. Specifically, how different cell types and network connectivity define neuronal processing. Dr. Dondzillo’s expertise in auditory brainstem synaptic and neuronal network anatomy as well as synaptic physiology developed during her doctoral training in the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg, and the postdoctoral training at the Universities of Heidelberg and Colorado. Her studies of auditory brainstem in rodent, using stereotaxic brain injections, and single cell recordings have shown involvement of inhibitory circuits in the synaptic processing of neurons in a major auditory brainstem nucleus, known as MNTB. The MNTB, itself consisting of inhibitory neurons, is important in sound source localization. Using single cell neuronal tracing, she found that the inhibitory signal that arrives to MNTB comes not only from outside source but also from the inside collateral neurons. Interestingly, the outside source of inhibition to MNTB, a small auditory brainstem nucleus in the medial olivocochlear center projects to the inner ear hair cells, where it too provides inhibition. This system of auditory brainstem – hair cells innervation changes within a life span. To further understand the role the medial olivocochlear center might have in age related hearing loss, Dr. Dondzillo research is focused on the inner ear hair cells and their synapses.

Publications

• Mayer F, Albrecht O, Dondzillo A, Klug A. Glycinergic inhibition to the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body shows prominent facilitation and can sustain high levels of ongoing activity. J Neurophysiol. 2014 Dec 1;112(11):2901-15. PubMed PMID: 25185813
• Albrecht O, Dondzillo A, Mayer F, Thompson JA, Klug A. Inhibitory projections from the ventral nucleus of the trapezoid body to the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body in the mouse. Front Neural Circuits. 2014;8:83. PubMed PMID: 25120436
• Dondzillo A, Quinn KD, Cruickshank-Quinn CI, Reisdorph N, Lei TC, Klug A. A recording chamber for small volume slice electrophysiology. J Neurophysiol. 2015 Sep;114(3):2053-64. PubMed PMID: 26203105
• Dondzillo A, Thompson JA, Klug A. Recurrent Inhibition to the Medial Nucleus of the Trapezoid Body in the Mongolian Gerbil (Meriones Unguiculatus). PLoS One. 2016 Aug 4;11(8):e0160241. PubMed PMID: 27489949
• Takeda H, Dondzillo A, Randall JA, Gubbels SP. Challenges in Cell-Based Therapies for the Treatment of Hearing Loss. Trends Neurosci. 2018 Nov;41(11):823-837. PubMed PMID: 30033182
• Banakis Hartl RM, Greene NT, Benichoux V, Dondzillo A, Brown AD, Tollin DJ. Establishing an Animal Model of Single-Sided Deafness in Chinchilla lanigera . Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg. 2019 Dec;161(6):1004-1011. PubMed PMID: 31570054
• Lee S, Dondzillo A, Gubbels SP, Raphael Y. Practical aspects of inner ear gene delivery for research and clinical applications. Hear Res. 2020 Sep 1;394:107934. PubMed PMID: 32204962
• Dondzillo A, Takeda H, Gubbels SP. Sex difference in the efferent inner hair cell synapses of the aging murine cochlea. Hear Res. 2021 May;404:108215. PubMed PMID: 33677192
• Takeda H, Dondzillo A, Randall JA, Gubbels SP. Selective ablation of cochlear hair cells promotes engraftment of human embryonic stem cell-derived progenitors in the mouse organ of Corti. Stem Cell Res Ther. 2021 Jun 19;12(1):352. PubMed PMID: 34147129
• Ly PT, Lucas A, Pun SH, Dondzillo A, Liu C, Klug A, Lei TC. Robotic stereotaxic system based on 3D skull reconstruction to improve surgical accuracy and speed. J Neurosci Methods. 2021 Jan 1;347:108955. PubMed PMID: 32971134
• Meredith FL, Vu TA, Gehrke B, Benke TA, Dondzillo A, Rennie KJ. Expression of hyperpolarization-activated current (Ih) in zonally defined vestibular calyx terminals of the crista. J Neurophysiol. 2023 Jun 1;129(6):1468-1481. doi: 10.1152/jn.00135.2023. Epub 2023 May 17. PMID: 37198134; PMCID: PMC10259860.