Dr Tommi Anttonen

Tommi Anttonen
Postdoctoral Research Associate

ORCID

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About

About

Current role

I am currently working as a postdoctoral research associate at the Animal Vibration Lab, focusing on how fibroblasts generate and detect vibrational cues in the extracellular matrix - a structural support network of fibrous proteins and other molecules that surround cells and act as a structural scaffold for tissues.

Previous positions

I got my PhD from the University of Helsinki, Finland, where I studied the development and cellular stress responses of mechanosensory hair cells and the associated supporting cells of the mouse inner ear.

To learn electrophysiological approaches to study the synaptic encoding of sounds, I worked at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Germany where I contributed to the surprising discovery that hair cells are electrically coupled together and form receptive fields in the inner ear (ref).

Next, I moved to Denmark where I expanded my expertise in auditory physiology and animal behaviour at Aarhus University where I for example contributed to the characterization a novel mouse model of a human deafness syndrome.

Supported by Lundbeckfonden, I studied the development and physiology of hearing in zebra finches at the Sound Communication and Behaviour Group at the University of Southern Denmark.

In 2023, I had the opportunity to spend a summer at Marine Biological Laboratory in USA as a Kavli-Grass fellow where I studied the effects of temporary hearing loss in songbirds and joined an exiting collaboration that described how individual, regenerating jellyfish can physiologically integrate together.

Research Interests

Research Interests

Key words: Sound and vibrational communication, sensory physiology, developmental and regenerative biology

During my studies, I became deeply fascinated in how sensory cells can code very soft vibrational/sound signals into electrical activity. Since then, I have been exploring how various cells in different animals achieve to do this and how animals use these vibrational signals to react to their environment. Additionally, a major interest of mine is to understand how these sensory systems react and cope with environmental stressors like man-made noise. Understanding these effects are not only important to support the efforts to protect vulnerable animal species but also have a high potential for therapeutically important discoveries. For example, non-mammalian vertebrates can regenerate hair cells of the inner ear after noise trauma and avoid deafness.

Publications

Publications

Work from previous positions

 

PREPRINTS

 

  • Anttonen T, Loning H, Felbo FM, Christensen-Dalsgaard J, Griffith SC, Naguib M, Elemans CPH (2025) Zebra finches produce intralaryngeal laminar flow whistles during panting. BioRxiv. doi: 10.1101/2025.02.14.638254.
  • Anttonen T, Christensen-Dalsgaard J, Elemans CPH (2024) Postnatal hearing development limits early parent-to-offspring vocal communication and gates sensorimotor learning in the zebra finch. BioRxiv. doi: 10.1101/2024.05.03.592470.

 

PUBLICATIONS

 

  • Jokura K, Anttonen T, Rodriguez-Santiago M, Arenas OM (2024) Rapid physiological integration of fused ctenophores. Curr Biol. Oct 7;34(19):R889-R890. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.07.084.
  • Anttonen T, Burghi T, Duvall L, Fernandez MP, Gutierrez G, Kermen F, Merlin C, Michaiel A (2023) Neurobiology and Changing Ecosystems: Mechanisms Underlying Responses to Human-Generated Environmental Impacts. J Neurosci. Nov 8;43(45):7530-7537. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1431-23.2023.
  • Jean P*, Anttonen T*, Michanski S, de Diego AMG, Steyer AM, Neef A, Oestreicher D, Kroll J, Nardis C, Pangršič T, Möbius W, Ashmore J, Wichmann C, Moser T (2020) Macromolecular and electrical coupling between inner hair cells in the rodent cochlea. Nat Commun. Jun 25;11(1):3208. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17003-z.
  • Anttonen T, Belevich I, Laos M, Herranen A, Jokitalo E, Brakebusch C, Pirvola U (2017) Cytoskeletal Stability in the Auditory Organ In Vivo: RhoA Is Dispensable for Wound Healing but Essential for Hair Cell Development. eNeuro. Sep 18;4(5). DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0149-17.2017.
  • Laos M, Sulg M, Herranen A, Anttonen T, Pirvola U (2017) Indispensable role of Mdm2/p53 interaction during the embryonic and postnatal inner ear development. Sci. Rep. Feb 9;7:42216. DOI: 10.1038/srep42216.
  • Anttonen T*, Herranen A*, Virkkala J, Kirjavainen A, Elomaa P, Laos M, Liang X, Ylikoski J, Behrens A, Pirvola U (2016) c-Jun N-Terminal Phosphorylation: Biomarker for Cellular Stress Rather than Cell Death in the Injured Cochlea. eNeuro. May 24;3(2). DOI: 10.1523/ENEURO.0047-16.2016.
  • Kirjavainen A, Laos M, Anttonen T, Pirvola U (2015) The Rho GTPase Cdc42 regulates hair cell planar polarity and cellular patterning in the developing cochlea. Biol. Open. Mar 13;4(4):516-26. DOI: 10.1242/bio.20149753.
  • Anttonen T, Belevich I, Kirjavainen A, Laos M, Brakebusch C, Jokitalo E, Pirvola U (2014) How to bury the dead: elimination of apoptotic hair cells from the hearing organ of the mouse. J. Assoc. Res. Otolaryngol. Dec;15(6):975-92. DOI: 10.1007/s10162-014-0480-x.
  • Laos M, Anttonen T, Kirjavainen A, af Hällström T, Laiho M, Pirvola U (2014) DNA damage signaling regulates age-dependent proliferative capacity of quiescent inner ear supporting cells. Aging (Albany NY). Jun;6(6):496-510. DOI: 10.18632/aging.100668.
  • Anttonen T*, Kirjavainen A*, Belevich I, Laos M, Richardson WD, Jokitalo E, Brakebusch C, Pirvola U (2012) Cdc42-dependent structural development of auditory supporting cells is required for wound healing at adulthood. Sci. Rep. 2:978. DOI: 10.1038/srep00978.

 

THESIS

 

  • Anttonen T (2018) Responses of Auditory Supporting Cells to Hair Cell Damage and Death: Cellular Stress Signalling and Epithelial Repair. Dissertationes Scholae Doctoralis Ad Sanitatem Investigandam Universitatis Helsinkiensis - URN:ISSN:2342-317X.  URN:ISBN:978-951-51-4559-8. https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/246606.
     

* = equal contribution

More information

More about my work

  • "This jelly is really two in one". 2024. Science, news
  • “Comb Jelly with Two Butts Is Actually Two Individuals Fused Together”. 2024 (January 2025 Issue). Scientific American.
  • “When a Song Bird Can’t Hear: Kavli-Grass Fellow Tunes Into Short-Term Hearing Loss”. 2023. The Collecting Net.
  • "Coupled hair cells in the inner ear - "Together we are strong". 2020. UMG Press release.