300245 SE Auditory and language neuroscience (2025S)

The seminar, which will take place entirely in English, will provide a broad overview of the fields of auditory and language neuroscience. Topics covered will include peripheral and central auditory physiology, music neuroscience, research on the human auditory cortex in relation to language processing, language aptitude and multilingualism, and more broadly on the neural bases of language processing in humans in the context of health, dysfunction (i.e. developmental and acquired language disorders) and expertise (e.g. expert phoneticians). There will be one or more guest lecturers during the seminar, internationally renowned experts in their fields.

There will be one to two mandatory readings per session. During each session, there will be a lecture on the topic(s) of the session, followed by student presentations of the mandatory reading(s). The presentations will be done by one student or by groups of 2-3 students, depending on the number of students who register for the seminar. The presentation has to cover the study background, methods, results and discussion, and students need to critically discuss the main results of the study and its limitations. If the paper is a review or opinion paper, the student will summarize and critically discuss its contents.

There are no prerequisites for taking this seminar. It will include introductions to the anatomy of the auditory system, brain imaging methods, neuroanatomy and to the functional anatomy of language. Solid knowledge of spoken and written English is, however, required.