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Washington, D.C. — Josef Rauschecker, PhD, neuroscientist and professor of physiology & biophysics, has been awarded the prestigious Humboldt Research Award by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Bonn, Germany. The Humboldt Research Award honors outstanding scholars who live outside Germany as a tribute to their lifetime achievements.
In addition to receiving the award, winners are also invited to conduct research with colleagues in Germany. Rauschecker will spend several months at the Munich Institute of Technology, and will also collaborate with scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig, and the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen. All three centers have outstanding facilities for the functional imaging of brain activity. The overarching theme in these collaborations will be the functional organization of perceptual and cognitive processes in the brain (particularly the cerebral cortex, which is the highest level of neural computation) with special emphasis on the processing of speech and language.
At Georgetown, Rauschecker and colleagues have recently discovered several specialized areas in the auditory cortex of primates-some dealing with sound localization; others with the processing of communication sounds. These findings were published last year in the journal
Science. One of the questions Rauschecker now plans to explore is whether similar areas exist in humans, and where in the brain mere "auditory processing" becomes "speech or language processing." This research may have implications for areas as diverse as the evolutionary biology of language and the design of more effective hearing aids.
"Dr. Rauschecker’s work has important implications for scientists seeking to learn more about how humans hear and about how our brains process language," said Michael Zasloff, MD, PhD, dean of research and translational science. "His collaborative work over the next year will undoubtedly enrich the field even further and will provide insights to better diagnose and treat central disorders that affect speech and hearing."
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