Maria Neimark Geffen, Ph.D.
Maria Neimark Geffen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Otorhinolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery
Department: Otorhinolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery
Graduate Group Affiliations
Contact information
Department of Otorhinolaryngology
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
5 Ravdin
3400 Spruce St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Philadelphia, PA 19104
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
5 Ravdin
3400 Spruce St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Office: 215.898.7504
Fax: 215.898.9994
Fax: 215.898.9994
Email:
mgeffen@med.upenn.edu
mgeffen@med.upenn.edu
Publications
Education:
A.B. (Molecular Biology)
Princeton University, 2001.
Ph.D. (Biophysics)
Harvard University, 2006.
Permanent linkA.B. (Molecular Biology)
Princeton University, 2001.
Ph.D. (Biophysics)
Harvard University, 2006.
Description of Research Expertise
For more information, please go to http://www.med.upenn.edu/hearing.When we walk into a crowded room, it takes us a moment to be able to hear clearly the voice of our partner against a noisy background. Yet it is an astonishing feat of our auditory system that we are able to do it at all, as the machines that we try to build to perform such a computation do not match our performance. How does the brain transform the time-varying sound pressure into a sound percept and attribute it to a specific source? How does it discard unnecessary information about the background?
Our goal is to understand processing of complex sounds at the level of multi-neuronal assemblies. We study how ensembles of neurons communicate to encode information about natural sounds, and how this coding is shaped by our behavior and experience.
We combine a variety of techniques across disciplines:
-statistical analysis of natural auditory scenes
-recording and analysis of responses of multi-neuronal ensembles in the auditory cortex of rodents
-rodent behavioral studies
-psychophysical experiments with human subjects
Selected Publications
Maria N. Geffen, Judit Gervain, Janet F. Werker and Marcelo O. Magnasco: Auditory perception of self-similarity in water sounds. Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience 5: 15, 2012.Maria N. Geffen: Neurons in the auditory cortex adapt to global temporal statistics of sounds. APAN 2010.
Maria Geffen: Neurons in mammalian auditory cortex are sensitive to information about global statistics of naturalistic sounds. COSYNE 2010.
Maria Geffen: Neurons in the auditory cortex encode information about global statistics of naturalistic sounds. APAN, Society of Neuroscience meeting October 2009 Notes: Short talk, poster.
Geffen, M.N., Boome, B.M., Laurent, G., Meister, M.: Neural encoding of rapidly flucturating odors. Neuron 61(4): 570-586, 2009.
Maria Geffen: Statistical analysis of natural sounds. Gordon Research Conference on Sensory Systems and Natural Enviornment July 2008 Notes: Poster.
Maria Geffen, Ph.D.: Statistical analysis of natural sounds. Cosyne meeting March 2008 Notes: Poster.
Maria Geffen: Temporal dynamics in the early olfactory system. Gordon Research Conference on Neural Circuits and Plasticity June 2007 Notes: Poster.
Geffen, M., deVries, S.E.J., and Meister, M.: Retinal Ganglion cells can rapidly change polarity from Off to On. PLoS Biology 5(3): 65, 2007.
Andermann, M.D., Ritt, J., Neimark, M.S., Moore, C.I.: Neural correlates of vibrissa resonance: band-pass and somatotopic representation of high-frequency stimuli. Neuron 42: 451-463, 2004.