Dr. Ketten
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About Dr. Ketten
Dr. Darlene Ketten is a scientist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Biology Department and Harvard Medical School’s Department of Otology and Laryngology. Her research focuses on the physical shape and function of the hearing and sound producing organs of all types of animals. Dr. Ketten uses computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to construct three-dimensional images and models of marine and terrestrial animals. She also conducts physical dissections to examine animals at the microscopic level. Dr. Ketten uses these data to better understand what and how animals hear.
Marine Mammal Hearing Research
Dr. Darlene Ketten uses computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), along with traditional physical dissections, to get detailed information about the hearing structures of animals. In the image above, Dr. Ketten is preparing a harbor porpoise for a CT scan.
She often also performs a dissection of the animal to obtain microscopic details about the hearing structures.
Dr. Ketten combined the data she collected from the CT scan, the MRI image, and the dissection to create a three-dimensional model of the harbor porpoise’s head. With these data, she is able to hypothesize about what and how the animals hear.