The Human Speech Cortex
Description
A unique and defining trait of human behavior is our ability to communicate through speech. The fundamental organizational principles of the neural circuits within speech brain areas are largely unknown. In this talk, I will present new results from our research on the functional organization of the human higher-order auditory cortex, known as Wernicke?s area. I will focus on how neural populations in the superior temporal lobe encode acoustic-phonetic representations of speech, and also how they integrate influences of linguistic context to achieve perceptual robustness.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Edward Chang is a neurosurgeon at UC San Francisco specializing in the treatment of intractable epilepsy, trigeminal neuralgia, and brain tumors. His scientific research focuses upon the brain mechanisms for human speech, movement, and cognition. He co-directs the Center for Neural Engineering & Prostheses at UC Berkeley and UCSF, which brings together engineering, neuroscience, neurology and neurosurgery to develop state-of-the-art biomedical devices to restore function for patients with neurological disabilities.