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Christopher B. Braun
Ph.D., University of California at San Diego, Neurosciences
Department of Psychology
Hunter College, Room 605N
695 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10065
Tel: (212) 772-5554
Fax:(212) 650-3018
Email: cbraun@hunter.cuny.edu
Current Areas of Research
All of the research in my lab can be related to the simple question: What do animals know about their world, and how do they know it? Indeed, all animals experience the world through their perceptions, so the world is literally defined by the sensory information available. I am particularly interested in understanding the tremendous diversity of sensory systems across the animal kingdom. The breadth of sensory systems found in fishes (the most diverse group of animals with backbones) offers countless opportunities to examine the results of natural evolutionary experiments. What can some species perceive that others cannot, and what specific features of their sensory apparatus are responsible for that difference in performance? We use a variety of techniques to probe the relationship between nervous system structure and sensory function, ranging from studies of peripheral sensory structures and the organization of sensory processing in the brain, to behavioral and physiological studies of sensory abilities.
Selected Publications
2008 Dailey, DD and CB Braun, Sonic Audition is the Dominant Mode of Dipole-Source Detection in Goldfish (Carassius auratus). Journal of Experimental Psychology (in print).
2008 Xiao, J and CB Braun, Objective threshold estimation and measurement of the residual background noise in auditory evoked potentials of goldfish and. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, (in print).
2008 Braun, C.B. and Grande, T. Evolution of peripheral mechanisms for the enhancement of sound reception. In Springer Handbook of Auditory Research: Fish Bioacoustics (A.N. Popper, R.R. Fay, and J.L. Webb, eds.). Springer-Verlag, N.Y. 99-144.
2007 Coombs, S., Anderson, E., Grosenbaugh, M. and C. B. Braun. The hydrodynamic footprint of a benthic, sedentary fish in unidirectional flow. Journal of The Acoustical Society of America, 122: 1227-1237.
2003 Coombs, S. and C. B. Braun. Information Processing by the Lateral Line System. In: Sensory Processing of the Aquatic Environment (S.P. Collin and N.J. Marshall, eds.) Springer-Verlag, N.Y. 122-138.
2002 Braun CB, Coombs S, and Fay R. What is the nature of multisensory interaction between Octavolateralis sub-systems? Brain Behav Evol 59:162-176.
