Learning and Plasticity for Auditory Perception
Date:
Wed, 06/03/2015 - 5:00pm - 6:00pm
Location:
CCRMA Seminar Room
Event Type:
Hearing Seminar How is it that the brain learns how to process new stimuli? And what can we do to make it easier for an individual? Dr. Matt Fitzgerald is a new member of the Stanford community. I’m happy to learn more about his work and to welcome him to the Stanford Hearing Community.
One last seminar before the end of the Stanford school year. I’m very happy to welcome Matt Fitzgerald to the Stanford community, and for the opportunity to hear about his research interests at this week’s CCRMA Hearing Seminar. Matt is head of the audiology department at Stanford, and he studied with Bev Wright, who is a Berkeley Ear Club graduate.
Note, this is a Wednesday seminar at 5PM so we can get this talk in before finals start!!!
Who: Matt Fitzgerald
What: Adaptation in recipients of cochlear implants
When: Wednesday, June 3 at 5PM <<<<< Note special time
Where: CCRMA Seminar Room
Why: Because auditory learning is important
Come to CCRMA and we’ll adapt your hearing (and thinking)!!!
Adaptation in recipients of cochlear implants
Matthew B Fitzgerald, Ph.D.
The cochlear implant is among the most remarkable medical advances in recent decades, allowing hundreds of thousands of previously deaf individuals to hear again. However, for post-lingually deafened individuals, the electric signal transmitted by the implant differs considerably from the acoustic signal heard before losing their hearing. These differences mean that recipients of cochlear implants must often undergo a lengthy process of adaptation to the device. This can require months, or even years of implant use before individuals can fully adapt. As a result, we have been developing new tools which can be used by audiologists and scientists to 1) determine whether a given individual has adapted fully to their cochlear implant, and 2) provide recommendations to the audiologist which can be used to change the implant programming to facilitate adaptation. We have also been examining new auditory training regimes in both individuals with normal hearing, and in those with hearing loss. Using these parallel approaches, we hope to achieve our ultimate goal of reducing the length of this adaptation process, and to improve the overall level of performance with the implant.
Matthew B. Fitzgerald, PhD
Dr. Fitzgerald received his undergraduate degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders from The Wichita State University in Kansas and his M.S. in Audiology and Hearing Sciences at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Fitzgerald pursued a clinical fellowship at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Michigan, before earning his Ph.D. in Communication Disorders at Northwestern University.
Dr. Fitzgerald completed his post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Otolaryngology at New York University's School of Medicine. In 2010, he joined the faculties at NYU, and at Montclair State University. In 2015, he became the Chief of Audiology at Stanford Medicine, where he oversees the Audiology departments at Stanford Hospital and the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Fitzgerald’s clinical care specializes in cochlear implants and other aspects of aural rehabilitation. He maintains an active research program, which presently focuses on auditory perceptual learning, cochlear implant mapping and outcomes, language development in children with cochlear implants, and new treatments for tinnitus. His research has been regularly funded by the National Institutes of Health.
FREE
Open to the Public