Title
Heard but not present: Pathophysiology of prediction and adaptation
In a continuously changing environment, we rely on prior knowledge to evaluate actual against expected sensations (predictions) and adapt to mismatches between these sensations. Pathological changes in the auditory system (e.g., deafferentation in tinnitus, aberrant sensory feedback in auditory verbal hallucinations) might lead to new default predictions that show as altered suppression and/or enhancing irrelevant sound. I will present animal and human studies on tinnitus and auditory hallucinations as examples of adaptive distortions in tone and voice processing. These data showcase the critical contribution of cortico-cerebello-thalamo-cortical circuitry in maintaining and adjusting predictions.
Biography
Sonja Kotz is a Professor of Translational Cognitive Neuroscience at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. Her research team investigates how timing and rhythmicity shape action, perception, and speech/music processing, using peripheral and neuroimaging measures. She holds honorary professorships at the University of Leipzig and Lisbon and is a senior/associate editor for several journals (e.g., Neuroimage, Cortex). Find out more about her lab @ www.band-lab.com.