Daniel Llano, Ph.D.

Dr. Daniel Llano is a professor in the Department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a full-time faculty member in the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology’s Neurotechnology for Memory and Cognition Group. He is also a physician-surgeon at Carle Illinois College of Medicine. His field of professional interest is systems neuroscience.
Llano's laboratory studies the mechanisms by which complex sounds like speech are processed by the auditory system. He hypothesizes that the auditory system generates internal models of the sensory world and uses these models to extract meaning from complex sensory stimuli. One potential neuronal substrate for this generative model is the massive system of descending projections from the auditory cortex to virtually every level of the subcortical auditory system. These projections are critical for shaping the response properties of neurons in the auditory periphery, but very little is known about their functional organization. 

He employs electrophysiological, novel optical, and advanced anatomical approaches to study the projections from the auditory cortex to subcortical structures. One specific set of issues concerns the role of different cortical subnetworks in complex sound processing. For example, neurons in both cortical layer 5 and cortical layer 6 project to subcortical structures, and the neurons in these layers have very different intrinsic, integrative and synaptic properties. Llano's work explores the different roles that these groups of neurons play in processing complex sound. 

Llano also has a strong interest in studying the reorganization of such networks during neuronal disease. In particular, his lab is developing models of stroke and age-related auditory network dysfunction for the development of novel therapeutic approaches.
His patient care work is focused on aging and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.
Research interests:


Computational biology




Imaging


Neurobiology


Optogenetics


Sensory processing


Aging-related diseases


Neurological and behavioral disorders


Education


M.D., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 


Ph.D., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign