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. His research topics include 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. His lab makes use of functional and structural MRI, MEG and EEG, and brain stimulation techniques, together with cognitive and psychophysical measures. In 2006 he 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. He was awarded several prizes including the IPSEN foundation prize in neuronal plasticity and the Knowles prize in hearing research from Northwestern University.
