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SUMMARY:Why the brain is the way it is: the efficient-coding hypothesis - 
 Professor David McAlpine\, UCL\, London.
DTSTART:20090609T130000Z
DTEND:20090609T140000Z
UID:TALK18735@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Hannah Critchlow
DESCRIPTION:A special lecture by Professor David McAlpine from the Univers
 ity College London Ear Institute\, London. \n\nResearch Interests: how the
  central auditory nervous system brings information together from the two 
 ears to form an "image" of the auditory environment. Specifically\, this i
 nvolves recording the responses of single neurones in the inferior collicu
 lus\, the major auditory nucleus in the midbrain\, to sounds presented to 
 both ears. As well as examining how neurones in the inferior colliculus ca
 n "extract" acoustic signals from a noisy background using binaural cues -
  a component of the "cocktail part effect" - I have\, more recently\, been
  investigating how the complexity of binaural processing increases as the 
 auditory pathway is ascended. As with all sensory systems\, the complexity
  of responses to relevant stimuli increases at progressively "higher" stag
 es in the central nervous system. This often manifests itself as an increa
 se in the complexity of the stimulus features that can be encoded\, a phen
 omenon known as "emergence". Understanding how encoding of complex auditor
 y features might emerge is the major goal of many contemporary auditory in
 vestigations\, and knowing how information from lower levels in the audito
 ry pathway is brought together to perform this task will contribute greatl
 y to this goal.\n\nBiosketch: Following my first degree in Physiology at t
 he University of Western Australia\, I moved to Oxford\, where\, for my D.
  Phil\, I studied the development of neuronal responses in the central aud
 itory system following cochlear insult at various post-natal ages. After c
 ompleting my D. Phil.\, I spent several years at the MRC Institute of Hear
 ing Research in Nottingham\, investigating binaural processing of complex 
 sounds in the central auditory system. Following a couple of years as a le
 cturer in Sheffield\, I took up my current post as a lecturer here at UCL 
 in October 1999.\n\n
LOCATION:Hodgkin-Huxley Room\, Department of Physiology\, Development and 
 Neuroscience\, Physiology Building\, Downing Site
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