Dr. Claude Alain
Dr. Claude Alain

Available Translations

Dr. Claude Alain

Senior Scientist Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre

Professor Department of Psychology, University of Toronto

Research Focus

My research is in the field of cognitive neuroscience and focuses on the brain processes that mediate perception and cognition of auditory patterns and events, specifically short-term memory and selective attention. I use a combination of neuroimaging techniques (e.g., ERPs, MEG, and fMRI) to investigate which, and how, different brain areas work together when participants' attention is directed to a particular sound identity and/or sound location in the auditory field. The hypothesis is that the auditory system provides the listener with the identity of the event as well as its location, i.e. the what and the where, and that these two types of information are provided by different areas of the brain. I am also interested in the neural and psychological mechanisms that underlie auditory scene analysis and how these mechanisms are influenced by the aging process. We are currently conducting several experiments that focus on the neural correlates of auditory scene analysis using either EEG, MEG and/or fMRI. These include investigating age-related differences in auditory cortical activity underlying concurrent sound perception, age-related differences in identifying and localizing auditory objects, and the effect of musical expertise on auditory scene analysis.

Publications

178 publications in total

Education

  • 1991: Ph.D., Psychology, University of Quebec Montreal, Canada
  • 1988: M.A., Psychology, University of Quebec Montreal, Canada
  • 1986: B.A., Psychology, Laval University Quebec, Canada

Academic Appointments

  • 1997–Present: Senior Scientist, Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • 2006–Present: Professor , Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • 2002–2006: Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • 1997–2001: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
  • 1991–1996: Postdoctoral Fellow, VA Medical Center & University of California, Davis, California, USA

Reviewership

Committee

  • 2005–2008: Society for Psychophysiological Research's Early Career Award committee
  • 2004: Review panel for Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience, a joint program of NSF and NIH
  • 2000–2003: NSERC review committee for scholarships in life sciences and psychology 2002-2002 FRSQ review committee for Chercheur Boursier

Distinctions and Awards

  • 2006: The Premier Research Excellent Award, 2002-2006
  • 2005: Scholarship , Canadian Institute for Health Research, 2000-2005

Research Projects

External

  • 2008–2011: The effects of noise, competing speech, and age on speech comprehension in monolingual and bilingual Chinese and English listeners
    Collaborators: Schneider, B., Liang Li, Alain, C.

    Sponsors: CHINA-CANADA Joint Health Research Initiative, 88,800

  • 2008–2011: Neural Mechanisms of Auditory-Based Remediation Programs
    Collaborators: Alain C., Ross, B., Tremblay, K.

    Sponsors: CIHR, 255,855

  • 2008–2011: Modulations of the face and eye gaze processing brain networks
    Collaborators: Itier, R., McIntosh, A.R., & Alain C.

    Sponsors: CIHR, 234,000

  • 2007–2012: The effect of aging on processing of spatial and nonspatial information in the auditory and visual systems
    Collaborators: Grady, C., Alain C.

    Sponsors: CIHR, 341,340

  • 2006–2011: Neuroimaging studies of auditory perception and attention
    Collaborators: Alain, C.

    Sponsors: National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, 200,000

  • 2006–2011: Magnetoencephalographic studies of the human auditory cortex
    Collaborators: Ross, B, Picton, T.W., Alain, C.

    Sponsors: CIHR, 681,170

  • 2005–2010: Neural architecture of auditory scene analysis.
    Collaborators: Alain, C.

    Sponsors: CIHR, 513,000

Contact

The Rotman Research Institute
Baycrest
3560 Bathurst Street, 1024
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M6A 2E1 Phone: 416-785-2500 x3523 Email: calain@rotman-baycrest.on.ca Fax: 416-785-2862