MONDAY, AUGUST 3
FROM PERCEPTION TO PLEASURE: THE NEUROSCIENCE OF MUSIC AND
WHY WE LOVE IT
Robert Zatorre, PhD
Professor and Canada Research Chair in Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience, Montreal Neurological Institute, McGill University, and Co-director, International Laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research (BRAMS)
Presentation Synopsis
Information coming soon.
About Robert Zatorre
Robert Zatorre is a cognitive neuroscientist whose laboratory studies the neural substrate for auditory cognition, with special emphasis on two complex and characteristically human abilities: speech and music. He and his collaborators have published more than 280 scientific papers on topics including pitch perception, auditory imagery, absolute pitch, perception of auditory space, and the role of the mesolimbic reward circuitry in mediating musical pleasure. His research spans all aspects of human auditory processing, from studying the functional and structural properties of auditory cortices to how these properties differ between the hemispheres and how they change with training or sensory loss. Zatorre’s lab makes use of functional and structural MRI, MEG, and EEG as well as brain stimulation techniques, together with cognitive and psychophysical measures.
In 2006, Zatorre became the founding co-director of the international laboratory for Brain, Music, and Sound Research (BRAMS), a unique, multi-university consortium with state-of-the art facilities dedicated to the cognitive neuroscience of music. In 2011, he was awarded the Fondation Ipsen Neuronal Plasticity Prize. In 2013, he won the Knowles Prize in Hearing Research from Northwestern University, and in 2017, he was elected to The Royal Society of Canada. In 2020, Zatorre was awarded the C. L. de Carvalho-Heineken Prize for Cognitive Science, the most prestigious international science prize in the Netherlands.