Hizlari gonbidatua: Olivier Collignon. Functionally specific multi-sensory brain networks and their plasticity

What: A multisensory perspective on functional brain networks

Where: BCBL Auditorium and Auditorium zoom room (If you would like to attend to this meeting reserve at info@bcbl.eu)

Who: Professor Olivier Collignon. PhD, FRS-FNRS Senior Research Associate, Crossmodal Perception and Plasticity Lab, Institutes for Research in Psychology & Neuroscience, UCLouvain, Belgium; School of Health Sciences, The Sense Innovation and Research Center, Lausanne and Sion, Switzerland

When:  Thursday,  Apr 3th at 12:00 PM noon.

Evolution has endowed humans with several senses allowing them to capture distinct forms of energies from their physical environment, opening different windows through which we can experience the world around us. Being able to capture redundant sensory information allows us to build more reliable representations of an event (e.g., focusing on the lips while listening to a speaker in a cocktail party). How do we represent in our mind and brain a perceptual unit that we can see, hear or touch?  Is there representation somewhere in the brain that goes beyond the sensory experience we have of things?
The availably of these different sensory systems also paves the way for considerable flexibility by allowing brain systems to supplement another following sensory deprivation. In the talk, I will rely on the most recent data collected in my lab to suggest that crossmodal plasticity in blind and deaf people recycles the intrinsic multisensory scaffolding of functional brain regions, with a specific emphasis on face and voice networks.