Alfred L. Nuttall, Ph.D.

  • Professor of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, School of Medicine
  • Jack Vernon Endowed Professor in Hearing Research, Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery, School of Medicine

Biography

Dr. Nuttall received a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Lowell Technological Institute, Lowell, MA, in 1965, two M.S. degrees in bioengineering and electrical engineering and a Ph.D. degree in bioengineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1968, 1969, and 1972, respectively. His postdoctoral work was completed at Kresge Hearing Research Institute, Department of Otolaryngology, University of Michigan, where he became an Assistant Professor in 1976, a Professor in 1987, and a Professor-Emeritus in 1996. Thereafter, he joined Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, where he is currently a Professor of Otolaryngology, and Vice Chair for Research and Jack Vernon Endowed Professor in Hearing Research at Oregon Health & Science University. He stepped down as the Director of the Oregon Hearing Research Center (OHRC) in 2024.  He is the author or coauthor of over 200 peer-reviewed articles on cochlear mechanics and cochlear blood flow.

Research Interest:

Hearing function and hearing loss Cochlear physiology, with particular interest in: How does load sound cause hearing loss? How do the sensory cells of the organ of Corti amplify and discriminate complex sounds?

Major Milestones and Significant Discoveries

Proof that spontaneous otoacoustic emissions come from vibration of the basilar membrane

The cochlea produces nitric oxide (NO) in abundance The organ of Corti produces power in response to sound A technology to measure human cochlear blood flow

Summary of Research Interests

Dr. Nuttall's research focuses on hearing function and hearing loss. The Nuttall lab is interested in how loud sounds causes hearing loss and how the sensory cells of the organ of Corti amplify and discriminate complex sounds.

Dr. Nuttall's research interests in cochlear physiology are divided into two major areas:

Dr. Nuttall's research focuses on hearing function and hearing loss. The Nuttall lab is interested in how loud sounds causes hearing loss and how the sensory cells of the organ of Corti amplify and discriminate complex sounds.Dr. Nuttall's research interests in cochlear physiology are divided into two major areas:

1) Mechanical processing of acoustic energy and function of the sensory cells,

2) The control of inner ear blood flow and the pathophysiology of cochlear blood circulation including the cellular and molecular mechanisms of noise-induced hearing loss in the vascular tissue, lateral wall and in the sensory cells of the organ of Corti.

The measurement of physiological variables for cochlear mechanics and blood flow is accomplished with the use of state of the art approaches. For example, laser interferometry is used to determine the motion of cellular structures in the organ of hearing, the organ of Corti, and Doppler optical microangiography is used to make direct observations of blood flow responses to loud sound in capillaries within the cochlea. Loud sound induced hearing loss elicits a multitude of deleterious responses including hypoxia/ischemia, inflammation, increased metabolic stress and vascular permeability, all which increase reactive oxygen species and may result in cell death. Dr. Nuttall's lab is studying the mechanisms by which loud sound-induced signal transduction pathways which contribute to hearing loss.

Education and training

  • Degrees

    • B.S., 1965, Lowell Technological Institute
    • M.S., 1968, University of Michigan
    • M.S., 1969, University of Michigan
    • Ph.D., 1972, University of Michigan

Memberships and associations:

  • Acoustical Society of America (Fellow)
  • American Association for Advancement of Science
  • Association for Research in Otolaryngology
  • Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (Senior Member)
  • International Blood Barriers Society
  • Microcirculation Society of America
  • Sigma Xi
  • Society for Neuroscience
  • New York Academy of Science
  • American Physiological Society
  • The Prosper Meniere Society
  • Oregon Academy of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery
  • SPIE – The Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers

Areas of interest

  • Hearing function and hearing loss
  • Cochlear physiology

Honors and awards

  • 1968 Eta Kappa Nu (Electrical Engineering Honor Society)
  • 1967 – 1970 NIH Bioengineering Traineeship
  • 1970 – 1972 Research Assistantship, University of Michigan Medical School
  • 1994 Claude Pepper Award of the NIH-National Institute for Deafness and other Communicative Disorders
  • 2000 Alumni Society Merit Award for the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan
  • 2004 Oregon Business Association Award
  • 2013 Jack Vernon Endowed Professorship in Hearing Research, Oregon Health & Science University

Publications

Selected publications

  • Ramamoorthy, S., Zhang, Y., Petrie, T., Fridberger, A., Ren, T., Wang, R.-K., Jacques, S. and Nuttall, A.L. (2016) Minimally invasive surgical method to detect sound processing in the cochlear apex by optical coherence tomography. J Biomed Opt 21(2), 025003. doi:10.1117/1.JBO.21.2.025003 PMC4796094
  • Wu, T., Ramamoorthy, S., Wilson, T., Chen, F., Porsov, E., Subhash, H., Foster, S., Zhang, Y., Omelchenko, I., Bateschell, M., Wang, L., Brigande, J., Jiang, Z.-G. and Nuttall, A.L. (2016) Optogenetic control of mouse outer hair cells. Biophys J 110(2):493-502. PMC4724629
  • Yang, Y., Chen, F., Karasawa, T., Ma, K.-T., Guan, B.-C., Shi, X.-R., Li, H., Steyger, P., Nuttall, A.L. and Jiang, Z.-G. (2015). Diverse Kir expression contributes to distinct bimodal distribution of resting potentials and vasotone responses of arterioles.PLoS ONE, 10(5), e0125266. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0125266. PMC4418701
  • Wilson, T., Omelchenko, I., Foster, S. Zhang, Y., Shi, Xiaorui and Nuttall, A.L. JAK2/STAT3 inhibition attenuates noise-induce hearing loss. PLoS One (2014) 9(10):1-10. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108276. PMC4183445
  • Le Floc'h, J., Tan, W., Telang, R.S., Vlajkovic, S.M., Nuttall, A.L., Rooney, W.D., Pontre, B. and Thorne, P.R. Markers of cochlear inflammation using MRI. J Magn Reson Imaging (2014) 39(1):150-61. PMC3935384
  • Ramamoorthy, S., Zha, D., Chen, F., Jacques, S.L., Wang, R., Choudhury, N., Nuttall, A.L. and Fridberger, A. Filtering of acoustic signals within the hearing organ. J Neurosci (2014) 34(27):9051-58. PMC4078082
  • Shi, X., Zhang, F., Urdang, Z., Dai, M., Neng, L., Zhang, J., Chen, S., Ramamoorthy, S. and Nuttall, A.L. Thin and open vessel-windows for intra-vital fluorescence microscopy imaging of the murine cochlear lateral wall. Hear Res (2014) 313:38-46. PMC4176943
  • Ren, T., Zheng, J., He, W. and Nuttall, A.L. Measurement of amplitude and delay of stimulus frequency otoacoustic emissions. J Otol (2013) 8(1):57-63. PMC4097125
  • Ramamoorthy, S. Wilson, T., Wu, T. and Nuttall, A.L. Non-uniform distribution of outer hair cell transmembrane potential induced by extracellular electrical field. Biophys J (2013) 105(12):2666-75. PMC3882456
  • Reif, R., Zhi, Z., Dziennis, S., Nuttall, A.L. and Wang, R.K. Changes in cochlear blood flow in mice due to loud sound exposure measured with Doppler optical microangiography and laser Doppler flowmetry. Quant Imaging Med Surg (2013) 3(5):235-42. PMC3834207

Publications

  • On the phase consistency of apical organ of Corti vibrations

    Hearing Research
    1. George W.S. Burwood
    2. Tianying Ren
    3. Alfred L. Nuttall
    4. Anders Fridberger

  • ANKRD24 organizes TRIOBP to reinforce stereocilia insertion points

    Journal of Cell Biology
    1. Jocelyn F. Krey
    2. Chang Liu
    3. Inna A. Belyantseva
    4. Michael Bateschell
    5. Rachel A. Dumont
    6. Jennifer Goldsmith
    7. Paroma Chatterjee
    8. Rachel S. Morrill
    9. Lev M. Fedorov
    10. Sarah Foster
    11. Jinkyung Kim
    12. Alfredl Nuttall
    13. Sherri M. Jones
    14. Dongseok Choi
    15. Thomasb Friedman
    16. Anthony J. Ricci
    17. Bo Zhao
    18. Peter G. Barr-Gillespie

  • An outer hair cell-powered global hydromechanical mechanism for cochlear amplification

    Hearing Research
    1. Wenxuan He
    2. George Burwood
    3. Anders Fridberger
    4. Alfred L. Nuttall
    5. Tianying Ren

  • Best frequencies and temporal delays are similar across the low-frequency regions of the guinea pig cochlea

    Science Advances
    1. George Burwood
    2. Pierre Hakizimana
    3. Alfred L. Nuttall
    4. Anders Fridberger

  • Outer hair cell driven reticular lamina mechanical distortion in living cochleae

    Hearing Research
    1. G. Burwood
    2. W. X. He
    3. A. Fridberger
    4. T. Y. Ren
    5. A. L. Nuttall

  • The reticular lamina and basilar membrane vibrations in the transverse direction in the basal turn of the living gerbil cochlea

    Scientific Reports
    1. Wenxuan He
    2. George Burwood
    3. Edward V. Porsov
    4. Anders Fridberger
    5. Alfred L. Nuttall
    6. Tianying Ren

  • The mechanoelectrical transducer channel is not required for regulation of cochlear blood flow during loud sound exposure in mice

    Scientific Reports
    1. George W.S. Burwood
    2. Suzan Dziennis
    3. Teresa Wilson
    4. Sarah Foster
    5. Yuan Zhang
    6. Gangjun Liu
    7. Jianlong Yang
    8. Sean Elkins
    9. Alfred L. Nuttall

  • Few-shot hypercolumn-based mitochondria segmentation in cardiac and outer hair cells in focused ion beam-scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) data

    Pattern Recognition Letters
    1. Julia Dietlmeier
    2. Kevin McGuinness
    3. Sandra Rugonyi
    4. Teresa Wilson
    5. Alfred Nuttall
    6. Noel E. O'Connor

  • A mechanoelectrical mechanism for detection of sound envelopes in the hearing organ

    Nature communications
    1. Alfred L. Nuttall
    2. Anthony J. Ricci
    3. George Burwood
    4. James M. Harte
    5. Stefan Stenfelt
    6. Per Cayé-Thomasen
    7. Tianying Ren
    8. Sripriya Ramamoorthy
    9. Yuan Zhang
    10. Teresa Wilson
    11. Thomas Lunner
    12. Brian C.J. Moore
    13. Anders Fridberger

  • Distribution and change of peroxynitrite in the Guinea pig cochlea following noise exposure

    Biomedical Reports
    1. Wei Ju Han
    2. Xiao Rui Shi
    3. Alfred Nuttall

  • Hydromechanical Structure of the Cochlea Supports the Backward Traveling Wave in the Cochlea in Vivo

    Neural plasticity
    1. Fangyi Chen
    2. Dingjun Zha
    3. Xiaojie Yang
    4. Allyn Hubbard
    5. Alfred Nuttall

  • Annexin A5 is the Most Abundant Membrane-Associated Protein in Stereocilia but is Dispensable for Hair-Bundle Development and Function

    Scientific Reports
    1. Jocelyn F. Krey
    2. Meghan Drummond
    3. Sarah Foster
    4. Edward Porsov
    5. Sarath Vijayakumar
    6. Dongseok Choi
    7. Karen Friderici
    8. Sherri M. Jones
    9. Alfred L. Nuttall
    10. Peter G. Barr-Gillespie

  • Minimal basilar membrane motion in low-frequency hearing

    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
    1. Rebecca L. Warren
    2. Sripriya Ramamoorthy
    3. Nikola Ciganovic
    4. Yuan Zhang
    5. Teresa M. Wilson
    6. Tracy Petrie
    7. Ruikang K. Wang
    8. Steven L. Jacques
    9. Tobias Reichenbach
    10. Alfred L. Nuttall
    11. Anders Fridberger

  • Minimally invasive surgical method to detect sound processing in the cochlear apex by optical coherence tomography

    Journal of biomedical optics
    1. Sripriya Ramamoorthy
    2. Yuan Zhang
    3. Tracy Petrie
    4. Anders Fridberger
    5. Tianying Ren
    6. Ruikang Wang
    7. Steven L. Jacques
    8. Alfred L. Nuttall

  • Optogenetic Control of Mouse Outer Hair Cells

    Biophysical Journal
    1. Tao Wu
    2. Sripriya Ramamoorthy
    3. Teresa Wilson
    4. Fangyi Chen
    5. Edward Porsov
    6. Hrebesh Subhash
    7. Sarah Foster
    8. Yuan Zhang
    9. Irina Omelchenko
    10. Michael Bateschell
    11. Lingyan Wang
    12. John V. Brigande
    13. Zhi Gen Jiang
    14. Tianyi Mao
    15. Alfred L. Nuttall

  • Diverse Kir expression contributes to distinct bimodal distribution of resting potentials and vasotone responses of arterioles

    PloS one
    1. Yuqin Yang
    2. Fangyi Chen
    3. Takatoshi Karasawa
    4. Ke Tao Ma
    5. Bing Cai Guan
    6. Xiao Rui Shi
    7. Hongzhe Li
    8. Peter S. Steyger
    9. Alfred L. Nuttall
    10. Zhi Gen Jiang

  • Filtering of acoustic signals within the hearing organ

    Journal of Neuroscience
    1. Sripriya Ramamoorthy
    2. Dingjun Zha
    3. Fangyi Chen
    4. Steven L. Jacques
    5. Ruikang Wang
    6. Niloy Choudhury
    7. Alfred L. Nuttall
    8. Anders Fridberger

  • JAK2/STAT3 inhibition attenuates noise-induced hearing loss

    PloS one
    1. Teresa Wilson
    2. Irina Omelchenko
    3. Sarah Foster
    4. Yuan Zhang
    5. Xiaorui Shi
    6. Alfred L. Nuttall

  • Markers of cochlear inflammation using MRI

    Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging
    1. Johann Le Floc'H
    2. Winston Tan
    3. Ravindra S. Telang
    4. Srdjan M. Vlajkovic
    5. Alfred Nuttall
    6. William D. Rooney
    7. Beau Pontré
    8. Peter R. Thorne

  • Thin and open vessel windows for intra-vital fluorescence imaging of murine cochlear blood flow

    Hearing Research
    1. Xiaorui Shi
    2. Fei Zhang
    3. Zachary Urdang
    4. Min Dai
    5. Lingling Neng
    6. Jinhui Zhang
    7. Songlin Chen
    8. Sripriya Ramamoorthy
    9. Alfred L. Nuttall

  • Depth-resolved dual-beamlet vibrometry based on Fourier domain low coherence interferometry

    Journal of biomedical optics
    1. Hrebesh M. Subhash
    2. Niloy Choudhury
    3. Fangyi Chen
    4. Ruikang K. Wang
    5. Steven L. Jacques
    6. Alfred L. Nuttall