Electronic Auditory Research Seminars

E.A.R.S. is a monthly online seminar series on auditory neuroscience featuring presentations by researchers in earlier stages of their careers with the focus on their latest data. The seminar series was started over the pandemic in 2020 and grew to over one thousand subscribers across the globe.

Seminars are on Tuesdays at 1 pm ET. They are free and hosted on Zoom: https://pennmedicine.zoom.us/j/96672201477 (Meeting ID: 96672201477)

We are now accepting abstract submissions for E.A.R.S. Trainee Session on May 7. Research trainees in auditory neuroscience at graduate or post-doctoral stage are welcome to submit their abstract for consideration. The trainee session will feature 10-minute presentations, selected by the EARS organizing committee from the submissions. This is a great opportunity to present your work to a wide audience of auditory neuroscientists. Please submit your abstract by April 22nd to be given full consideration:

https://forms.gle/CzyKm1vY2QgLKgqC9

Organizing committee

Dr. Matila Gibbons, Dr. Bhanu Shukla, Dr. Yale Cohen and Dr. Maria Geffen

SPONSORS: Penn CNI and Penn MindCORE

For updates and reminders about future seminars, please subscribe to our mail list by emailing: ears2022+subscribe@googlegroups.com or visiting the following the link: https://groups.google.com/g/ears2022

UPCOMING SEMINARS

 

 

5/7/2023 1 PM ET Trainee session

Thank you for submitting your abstracts for the trainee session! Congratulations to Ansley, Ben-Zheng, Cody and Tomas!

Ansley Kunnath (Vanderbilt University): “Audiovisual training improves speech understanding in adult cochlear implant recipients”.

Ben-Zheng Li (University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus): “Investigating the neural mechanisms contributing to sound localization precision”.

Cody Cao (University of Michigan): “Distinct Mechanisms for Onset and Ongoing Visual Timing Information in Auditory Cortex”.

Tomas Suarez Omedas (Carnegie Mellon University): “Auditory cortex constructs noise-invariant representations of sounds in background noise”.
 

PAST SEMINARS

Please watch our previous seminars by clicking on the date(s) below:

SPRING 2024

2/13/2024 1 pm ET
Passcode: !F7sVGZ7

Laura Gwilliams, Stanford University

Chris Rogers, Emory University

3/19/2024 1 PM ET
Passcode: D^Js7v^f

Professional development session: Neuroscience careers outside of academia.

Panelists:

  1. Mira Puri - Azrieli Foundation
  2. Yoojin Chung - Decibel Therapeutics
  3. Janaki Sheth - ClearView Healthcare Partners
  4. Katherine Gribble - Akouos

4/16/2023 1 PM ET
Passcode: 5ta=j%&m

Alfonso Apicella (University of Texas San Antonio)
“Cholinergic Modulation of Auditory Circuits”


Anahita Mehta (University of Michigan)
“Investigating the neural correlates of harmonicity in humans”

FALL 2023

09/26/2023 Professional development session: Applying for faculty positions -- a behind the scenes look.

Panelists: Dr. Daniel Polley (MEEI/Harvard University); Dr. Marina Silveira (University of Michigan); Dr. Chris Petkov (Newcastle).

 

10/24/2023 1 pm ET

Maria Loconsole (University of Padova):

“Tortoises (Testudo hermanni) spontaneously associate visual and acoustic information”

Julia George (Clemson University):

"What the egg hears: how acoustic signals reprogram zebra finch development"

 

12/12/2023 1 pm ET This session is our trainee session, and we have four speakers presenting their work:
Passcode: rUG6W5L


Magdalena Sabat (Ecole Normale Superieure): “Time-limited integration windows constrain and organize hierarchical computation in ferret auditory cortex.”
 
Samantha Moseley (University of Virginia): “Effects of the Early Acoustical Environment on Learning and the Avian Auditory Pallium.”
 
Pavo Orepic (University of Geneva): “Neural manifolds carry reactivation of phonetic representations during semantic processing.”
 
Jenna Devare (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia): “Cerebrospinal fluid delivered cochlear AAV gene therapy enabled by hair-cell-specific payload.”


 

SPRING 2023

01/17/2023 Qiaojie Xiong (Stony Brook University): "Nigrostriatal dopamine pathway regulates auditory behaviors"

  Emily Dennis (Janelia Research Campus): "How do mice hunt for sounds?"

02/21/2023 Sam Norman-Haignere (University of Rochester): "Neural integration in the human auditory cortex"

Ross Williamson (University of Pittsburgh): "Brain-wide neural circuits for sensory-guided behavior"

03/14/2023 Professional Development session: Academic publishing: behind-the-scenes tips for managing peer reviews and data.

Panelists (CLICK name for resources & slides): Catherine Carr (UMD), Dan Sanes (NYU), Stephen David (OHSU)

 

04/18/2023 Trainee talks:

Adrian Bondy (Princeton University): “Striatal circuits for auditory decisions”

Audrey Drotos (University of Michigan): “GluN2D-containing NMDA receptors enhance temporal summation in VIP neurons in the inferior colliculus”

Chenggang Chen (Johns Hopkins University): “Stimulus-Specific Facilitation and Adaptation to Repetitive Stimuli in Auditory Cortex”

Erika Correll (University of Massachusetts Amherst): “Filtering the Noise: The Inhibitory Contribution of Pedunculotegmental GABAergic Neurons During Sensorimotor Gating”

Alexander Egea Weiss (The Francis Crick Institute): “Functional specificity of auditory inputs to the visual cortex”

 

05/09/2023 Charles Anderson (West Virginia University): "Cell-type specific enhancement of deviance detection by synaptic zinc in mouse auditory cortex”

Dayo Adewole (University of Pennsylvania): "Tissue Engineering for Auditory Rehabilitation"

 

FALL 2022

09/13/2022 Lixia Gao (Zhejiang University): “Development of turn-taking during marmoset vocal communication”

  Amanda Lauer (Johns Hopkins University): "Role of the olivocochlear system in hearing across the lifespan"

10/11/2022 Karine Fenelon (University of Massachusetts Amherst): "Brainstem mechanisms modulating prepulse inhibition of the startle reflex"

  Malte Wöstmann (Universität zu Lübeck): "Behavioural and electrophysiological signatures of auditory distraction in time and space"

11/01/2022 Professional Development session: Conferencing 101 -- How to Navigate APAN/SFN

Maria Geffen and Yale Cohen (UPenn): Building an Itinerary

Merri Rosen (NEOMED): Networking

David Schneider (NYU): Poster Design

12/13/2022 Trainee talks:

Kameron Clayton (Mass. Eye & Ear, Harvard University): "Pumping the brakes: new approaches to reinvigorating hypoactive inhibitory circuits in   auditory cortex"

Carla Griffiths (University College London): "Neural correlates of perceptual constancy in the auditory cortex an effect of behavioural training"

Amy LeMessurier (New York University): "Corticofugal contributions to vocalization-guided maternal behavior"

John Orczyk (University of Pittsburgh): "The lifetime of an activity-silent neural correlate of echoic memory is closer to the behavioral ground truth   than the lifetime of an activity-based neural correlate"

Erica Shook (Columbia University): "Predictive dynamics improve noise robustness in a deep network model of the human auditory system"

 

SPRING 2022

01/18/2022 Kerry Walker (University of Oxford): “Hearing in an acoustically varied world”

  Lizabeth Romanski (University of Rochester): “Investigation of Identity and Expression Processing in Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex”

 

02/15/2022 Ioana Carcea (Rutgers University): "Social transmission of behavioral responses to distress calls"

  Liberty Hamilton (University of Texas at Austin): "A parallel pathway for speech that bypasses primary auditory cortex"

03/22/2022 Trainee talks:

Kelsey Anbuhl (New York University): "An adolescent sensitive period to transient hearing loss"

Yaneri A. Ayala (National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM)): "Neural activation in the auditory cortices of the nonhuman primate during movement synchronization to auditory metronomes"

Allen Chen (Stony Brook University): "Nigrostriatal dopamine pathway regulates auditory discrimination behavior"

Katarina Poole (University College London): "Behavioural and neural measures of regularity detection in ferrets"

Nathan A. Schneider (University of Pittsburgh): "Extratelencephalic contributions to auditory-guided behavior"

 

04/19/2022 Demystifying the BRAIN Initiative® Program: Guidance to Potential NIDCD Applicants. :

Organizers: Dr. Merav Sabri (NIH), Dr. Amy Poremba (NIH); Dr. Maria Geffen (Penn); Dr. Dan Sanes (NYU)

Presenters: Dr. Andrea Beckel-Mitchener (NIH); Dr. Jim Gnadt (NIH); Dr. Karen David (NIH); Dr. Maria Geffen (University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Stephen David (OHSU), Dr. Dmitry Rinberg (New York University)

 

05/10/2022 Diego Elgueda (University of Chile): "Sound and behavioral meaning encoding in the auditory cortex"

  Narayan Sankaran (University of California San Francisco): "Intracranial recordings reveal the encoding of melody in the human superior temporal gyrus"

 

FALL 2021

09/14/2021 David Schneider (New York University): "Motor-related expectation drives predictive processing in mouse auditory cortex"

 

10/12/2021 Laurel Carney (University of Rochester): "Neural Representations of Stimulus Envelopes: What’s Inside?"

  Aravind Parthasarathy (University of Pittsburgh): "A cross-species approach for studying markers and mechanisms of speech intelligibility"

 

11/30/2021 Hiroyuki Kato (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill): "Cortical area-specific roles in spectro-temporal integration"

  Mitchell Sutter (University of California, Davis): "Task Dependence of Attentional Modulation of Auditory Cortical Coding"

 

12/14/2021 Trainee talks:

Xindong Song (Johns Hopkins University): "Discrete patches of cortical pitch processing in the common marmoset"

Alejandro Tabas (Technische Universität Dresden): "Prediction error is computed with respect to two concurrent generative models in the human auditory pathway"

Silvana Valtcheva (NYU School of Medicine): "Neural circuitry for maternal oxytocin release induced by infant vocalizations"

 

SPRING 2021

01/26/2021 Antje Ihlefeld (New Jersey Institute of Technology): "Strategies for listening in the dips"

  Srivatsun Sadagopan (University of Pittsburgh): "Probing cortical mechanisms supporting vocalization recognition-in-noise"

02/23/2021 Jennifer Resnik (Ben Gurion University): "Distinct forms of cortical plasticity underlie difficulties to reliably detect sounds in noisy environments"

  Julio Hechavarria (Goethe University): "Acoustic context modulates natural sound discrimination in the auditory cortex through frequency specific adaptation" 

03/16/2021 Trainee talks:
Alice Burghard (UConn Health): "Long-duration sound evoked afterdischarge – just some neurons that have missed their stop cue?"
Mateo Lopez-Espejo (Oregon Health and Science University): "Temporal integration and contextual discrimination in neuronal populations of the auditory cortex"
Chase Mackey (Vanderbilt University): "Hierarchical characterization of temporal integration in the subcortical auditory system of rhesus macaques"
Alice Milne (University College London): "Sustained pupil responses are modulated by predictability of auditory sequences"
Nihaad Paraouty (New York University): "Social learning enhances stimulus representations in the auditory cortex"
Magdalena Solyga (Basel University): "Emergence and function of cortical offset responses in sound termination detection"

04/13/2021 Livia de Hoz (Charité - Medical University Berlin): "Independent processing of sound features in mice"

  Hysell Oviedo (City University of New York): "Interrogating circuits to decode speech"

05/11/2021 Trainee talks:

Nicholas Audette (New York University): “Movement-based predictions in mouse auditory cortex”

Jung Ho Hyun (Johns Hopkins University): “Demystifying cognitive flexibility at cellular resolution”

Leena Ali Ibrahim (Harvard Medical School): “Developmental dynamics of input integration onto L1 cortical interneurons”

Elena Rotondo (Rutgers University): “Promoting the formation of auditory memories for specific temporal features of sound using epigenetic regulators”

Aaron Williams (University of Pennsylvania): “Sound improves neural encoding of visual stimulus in mouse V1”

Justin Yao (New York University): “Auditory evidence accumulation in parietal cortex”

 

FALL 2020

09/29/2020 Michele Insanally (University of Pittsburgh): "Neuronal dynamics of non-classically responsive cortical neurons" 

  Nikolas Francis (University of Maryland): "Decision-making modulates neuronal responsiveness and functional connectivity in primary auditory cortex"

10/13/2020 Stephen Town (UCL): "Knowing your place: behavior, neurophysiology and modelling of world-centered sound localization"

  Merri Rosen (NEOMED): "Hearing loss and stress during development: Perceptual deficits and central auditory correlates"

11/17/2020 Melissa Caras (University of Maryland): “Contributions of top-down circuits to perceptual learning”

  Anne Takesian (Harvard University): "Diverse layer 1 circuits gating auditory cortical plasticity"

12/08/2020 Kishore Kuchibhotla (Johns Hopkins University): "Behavioral and neural correlates of latent knowledge during sensorimotor learning"

  Santiago Jaramillo (University of Oregon): "Spectral surround suppression in the auditory cortex: roles and mechanisms"