Nationality Japanese | Name Nobuo Suga Doctoral advisor Yatsuji Katsuki | |
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Institutions Washington University in St Louis Doctoral students Jonathan Fritz, Philip Jen Education | ||
Residence United States of America | ||
Nobuo Suga is a Japanese biologist, famous for his research on the neurophysiology of hearing, and echolocation in bats.
Contents
Life
After achieving a bachelor's degree in biology at Tokyo Metropolitan University in 1958, Nobuo studied for his doctoral thesis on the neurophysiology of hearing with Yatsuji Katsuki at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University. His early research attracted the attention of Vincent Wigglesworth of Cambridge University, a prominent insect researcher, and Donald Griffin of Harvard University, who studied bats. From there, his career took him to UCLA and UC San Diego School of Medicine, before finally arriving at Washington University. Suga became a U.S. citizen in 1993, prompted by an incident at Lambert International Airport where a customs agent couldn't recognize Suga's picture on his green card, issued in 1966.
Work
Suga's work revealed much about the location and function of auditory system in the brain. Whilst at Washington University, he mapped the areas of the bat brain involved in processing Doppler shift (velocity) information, and in processing distance information for echolocation. His recent work has focused on the plasticity of the auditory system mediated by cortico-cortical interactions and corticofugal feedback.