I studied Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, and Artificial Intelligence. I have an interdisciplinary education in mathematics, computer science, logic, linguistics, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and analytic philosophy. I specialized in experimental neuroscience and received a Ph.D. in Neuroscience on the topic of neural signal dynamics in different brain states from Hannover Medical School, Germany.
I am interested in the question: Why do people behave the way they do? And as long as you agree with the fundamental premise of neuroscience - the answer to this question ultimately lies in the function of the brain. At least for some parts. However, there is more to this question, for example, what role does play conscious experience in this? And what are the most basic building blocks to start with? There are many small questions and problems in neuroscience, especially of practical clinical importance.
I am working currently on the topic of brain plasticity after hearing loss. This comes down to two questions: What happens to your brain when you become deaf? And how does your brain develop when you are born deaf? These questions are especially important in relation to hearing restoration with cochlear implants. The cochlear implant restores the auditory input to the deaf brain and this suddenly has to make sense again of this new auditory input. However, adaptations of the brain to deafness may then be interfering or not with this new sensory information.
On a more technical side, I am also interested in changes of sensory processing during anesthesia, or different brain states in general, which also can help to define what consciousness NOT is. I apply multichannel microelectrode arrays, cortical surface, and EEG recordings, in combination with different types of brain signals and different signal processing techniques to study these questions.
Currently, I work towards the tuning of neural prostheses with a combination of machine learning and a lexicon of auditory neural representations. In addition, I currently study cognitive executive function in hearing and deaf subjects with human EEG. I am currently running an auditory neuroscience lab within the Institute for Audioneurotechnology of Prof. Andrej Kral at the Hannover Medical School, Germany.