Multisensory Processes across the Lifespan, by Micah M. Murray

Summary Multisensory Processes across the Lifespan

This lecture provides an overview of our efforts to understand the multisensory nature of human cortices. First, a summary of how human brain imaging, mapping and stimulation have been innovated to document multisensory processes in human cortices is provided, followed by evidence of the behavioural and perceptual relevance of such processes. Next, the persistence of multisensory processes across time is demonstrated by documenting their contribution to memory functions. This is followed by demonstrations across infancy, childhood, adulthood, and ageing of how low-level multisensory processes scaffold and even predict the integrity of higher-level cognitive functions. Finally, the contributions of multisensory processes to the accessible and democratized rehabilitation of visual loss is presented. Collectively, this work outlays a roadmap for the central role of multisensory processes across the lifespan in health and disease.

Short biography 

Micah M. Murray serves as the founding Scientific and Academic Director of The Sense Innovation and Research Center, which is a joint venture of the Lausanne University Hospital, The University of Lausanne, and the University of Applied Sciences of Western Switzerland. He earned a double BA from The Johns Hopkins University (1995). He received his PhD with honours in neuroscience from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University (2001). He worked as a post-doctoral scientist at the University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland. Since 2003, he has held a faculty position at the University Hospital Center and University of Lausanne, Switzerland (CHUV-UNIL) with appointments in the Radiology, Clinical Neurosciences and (since 2015) Ophthalmology Departments. Since 2008, he holds an adjunct faculty position at Vanderbilt University (Nashville, TN, USA). He is the founding director of the Laboratory for Investigative Neurophysiology and director of the CIBM EEG CHUV-UNIL Section of the Center for Biomedical Imaging. Dr. Murray has a contiguous record of grant support from the Swiss National Science Foundation in addition to numerous other foundation and industrial grants. He is the laureate of awards from the Leenaards Foundation, the Swiss Society for Biological Psychiatry, the Swiss National Science Foundation, and the Swiss Brain League. He currently holds editorial positions at Brain Topography (Editor-in-Chief), Neuropsychologia (Section Editor), and Current Biology (Editorial Board). His research focuses on brain imaging and mapping methods as well as their applications in both health and disease across the lifespan. His work has not only led to new schemas of brain functional organization, but also to new diagnostic and intervention strategies for cognitive dysfunction using sensory processes as an access point. more information