Competences:
- Establishing systematic protocols for the assessment of auditory processing from peripheral to central mechanisms.
- Mechanisms and diagnostics of noise-induced hearing loss and 'hidden' hearing loss.
- Studying fluctuation in attention as a function of relevant and irrelevant sounds using a free listening electroencephalography (EEG) protocol.
- Understanding the role of different auditory processing stages for functioning in complex sonic environments.
- Auditory processing for central auditory processing disorders related with neurological conditions such as Parkinson's disease.
Research projects:
- ERC project: Robust speech encoding in impaired hearing (RobSpear)
- DFG project: Impact of hearing impairment on the source generators of auditory evoked potentials
- BOF project: The DUCK project: Distraction from learning by Unrelated auditory events assessed by Computational modeling and Knowledge extraction from single-trial electroencephalography
- BOF doctoral scholarship: Neurophysiological relationship between sound intensity perception and hypophonic speech production in Parkinson’s disease: unraveling the role of primary auditory perception, gating and attention
- FWO postdoctoral fellowship: Functional high resolution monitoring for instantaneous effects of noise on hearing and functioning
Collaborations:
- Department of Neurology (Ghent University)
- Department of Speech, Language and Hearing disorders (Ghent University)
- Department of Otolaryngology (Ghent University)
- International Laboratory for Brain, Music and Sound Research (BRAMS, Montréal)
- Center for Computational Neuroscience and Neural Technology (CompNet, Boston)
- Oldenburg University (DE)
Tools and Valorisation:
- Biologically inspired auditory scene analysis
- Protocol for peripheral and central auditory processing
- EEG protocols sensitive to "hidden" hearing loss (cochlear synaptopathy) in the presence of outer-hair-cell loss
- Otoacoustic emission protocols for cochlear mechanic studies and hearing diagnostics
Key Publications:
- The relationship between speech production and speech perception deficits in parkinson’s disease. (K. De Keyser, P. Santens, A. Bockstael, D. Botteldooren, D. Talsma, S. De Vos, M. Van Cauwenberghe, F. Verheugen, P. Corthals, and M. De Letter, Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research)
- Individual differences in auditory brainstem response wave characteristics: Relations to subcomponents of peripheral hearing loss (Verhulst S, Jagadeesh A, Mauermann M, Ernst F., (2016) Trends in Hearing 20, 2331216516672186.)
- Otoacoustic Estimates of Human Supra-Threshold Auditory Filter Tuning. (Raufer S, Verhulst S. (2016) Hearing Research 342150-160)
- On the Interplay Between Cochlear Gain Loss and Temporal Envelope Coding Deficits. (Verhulst S, Piktel P, Jagadeesh A, and Mauermann M (2016), In: Physiology, Psychoacoustics and Cognition in Normal and Impaired Hearing, Springer International Publishing, 467-475. )
- Auditory brainstem response latency in noise as a marker of cochlear synaptopathy. (Mehraei G, Hickox A, Bharadwaj H, Goldberg H, Verhulst S, Liberman MC, Shinn-Cunningham BG (2016)., The Journal of Neuroscience 36 (13): 3755-3764.)
- Individual differences reveal correlates of hidden hearing deficits. (Bharadwaj H, Masud S, Mehraei G, Verhulst S, Shinn-Cunningham BG. (2015), Journal of Neuroscience 35 (5): 2161-2172.)
- Cochlear Neuropathy and the coding of supra-threshold sound (Bharadwaj H, Verhulst S, Shaheen L, Liberman MC, Shinn-Cunningham B, (2014) , Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 8, 26)