Question and Answer Session featuring Samuel Norman-Haignere
In the realm of neuroscience, a significant breakthrough has been made by Assistant Professor Samuel Norman-Haignere, a researcher based at the University of Rochester. His groundbreaking work, focused on the auditory cortex and the mechanisms of perception, has led to the discovery of previously unseen neural populations that respond selectively to music, speech, and singing.
Samuel Norman-Haignere's academic journey began at Yale University, where he earned his B.A. in Cognitive Science. He then pursued his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Today, he collaborates with esteemed researchers at institutions such as MIT and New York University (NYU), using intracranial recordings and developing computational methods and models to understand how the brain encodes natural sounds like speech and music.
Intracranial recordings, also known as electrocorticography (ECOG), provide more precise measurements of electrical activity in the human brain. For his research, Norman-Haignere works closely with neurologists and neurosurgeons at the Medical Center, using data collected from epilepsy patients who have electrodes implanted in their brain for seizure localization.
The music and song-selective neural populations discovered by Norman-Haignere were particularly surprising and had not been seen clearly before. His research involves developing statistical methods to reveal underlying structure from high-dimensional neural responses to natural sounds. The aim is to predict neural responses and link them with perception and behaviour.
Norman-Haignere's work has been instrumental in understanding how the brain represents natural sounds like speech and music. He holds a joint position between the departments of Biostatistics and Computational Biology and Neuroscience at the University of Rochester. His research is not only groundbreaking but also interdisciplinary, drawing on the strengths of Rochester's neuroscience, statistics, and auditory communities.
In collaboration with the Medical Center's outstanding neurology team, Norman-Haignere is collecting intracranial data to further his research. As an assistant professor of Neuroscience and Biostatistics and Computational Biology, his work continues to push the boundaries of our understanding of the human brain and its remarkable abilities.
