Auditory brain abnormalities in developmental disorders

We study auditory brain abnormalities in mouse models of human developmental disorders such as dyslexia, specific language impairment and autism. In one of these projects, we have discovered a previously unsuspected form of central auditory abnormality: reduced brain sensitivity to sound offsets, but not sound onsets. We're now investigating how this abnormality arises, what its consequences for sound perception might be, and whether it is relevant to understanding listening difficulties in humans with central auditory processing disorders.

Collaborators:

• Dr Conny Kopp-Scheinpflug (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany)
• Professor Stuart Rosen (Department of Psychology and Language Sciences, UCL)
• Professor Doris-Eva Bamiou (Ear Institute, UCL)
• Professor Zoltan Molnar (University of Oxford, UK)