Our research involves investigating the role of the cerebral cortex in the perception of auditory signals. Lesions of the auditory cortex in humans and animals results in two main deficits: the ability to determine the location of sounds and the ability to process sounds that vary rapidly in time, such as most environmental noises and human speech. While the cerebral cortex is obviously important for these fundamental perceptions, the neuronal mechanisms that underlie these perceptions are poorly understood. Our main focus has been in the processing of sound location, and most recently in defining the interactions between auditory and visual stimuli in the perception of the location of combined auditory and visual stimuli. Under normal conditions, visual stimuli "capture" the perceived location of auditory stimuli, generating the ventriloquism illusion. Under the appropriate circumstances, this illusion can be long-lasting, a phenomenon known as the ventriloquism aftereffect. The presence of this aftereffect indicates that the spatial representation of multi-sensory stimuli must be plastic and can be altered in the adult within minutes to tens of minutes.

Teaching Interests:
Neuroscience.

Courses Taught:
NPB 12: The human brain and disease
NPB 124: Comparative Neuroanatomy
NPB 291: Auditory Neuroscience
NPB 292: Cortical plasticity and perception

Publications:

Woods, T.M. and Recanzone, G.H. (2004) Visually-induced plasticity of auditory spatial perception in macaques. Current Biol.15:1559-1564.

Recanzone, G.H. (2003) Auditory influences on visual temporal rate perception. J. Neurophysiol. 89:1078-1093

Recanzone, G.H. (2001) Spatial processing in the primate auditory cortex. Audiol. Neuro-Otol. 6:178-181.

Slutsky, D.A. and Recanzone, G.H. (2001) Temporal and spatial dependency of the ventriloquism effect. Neuroreport 12:7-10

Phan, M.L., Schendel, K.L., Recanzone, G.H. and Robertson, L.R. (2000) Auditory and visual spatial localization deficits following bilateral parietal lobe lesions in a patient with Balint's syndrome. J. Cog. Neurosci. 12:583-600

Recanzone, G.H. (2000) Response profiles of auditory cortical neurons to tone and noise stimuli in the behaving macaque monkey. Hearing Res. 150:104-118.

Su, T.K. and Recanzone, G.H. (2001) Differential effect of near- threshold stimulus intensities on sound localization performance in azimuth and elevation in normal human subjects. J. Assoc. Research Otolaryngol. 2:246-256.