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| HEAR, HEAR!
An expert on brain processes related to hearing has won SIUC’s 2003 Outstanding Scholar award. Neuropharmacologist Donald
Caspary, a faculty member and assistant dean at the SIU
School of Medicine in Springfield, first gained attention for his landmark
studies on the effects of particular chemicals that transmit information
to nerve cells in the mid-brain and inner ear.
Caspary also played a role in refining a drug-delivery technique used in pharmacological studies. The improvements enabled scientists to undertake intensive tests previously impossible to run. Caspary trained neuroscientists from across the country in the use of this new technology. Caspary’s current research focuses on how the brain’s ability to process auditory signals changes with age. He hopes that this knowledge might lead to the development of drugs that could treat age-related hearing loss. He also is working on problems related to tinnitus—that annoying "ringing in the ears" sensation. Caspary has had funding for his work from the National Institutes of Health since 1973, a remarkable record shared by few other scientists. He also has received the NIH’s Claude Pepper Award. His findings regularly appear in such publications as the Journal of Neuroscience, the Journal of Neurophysiology,Neuroscience, and the Journal of Comparative Neurology. Colleagues in his field describe Caspary as "a scientist's scientist," a "leading researcher," and a "pioneer." "Donald Caspary was there years in advance of the crest, defining the problems, framing their solution, proposing clear hypotheses that could be tested explicity," said University of California at Berkeley professor Jeffery A. Winer, a world-class neuroanatomist, in a letter supporting Caspary's nomination for the scholar award. "He has the ability to imagine what the rest of us could not even think." —K. C. Jaehnig
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