SNNU@HeAL2024

Members of our SNN-Unit recently attended the international HeAL (Hearing Across the Lifespan) conference, held in the beautiful Villa Erba Conference Center at Lake Como. Besides listening to interesting talks about new developments in modern audiology and the science of hearing as well as meeting experts from all around the world, we were keen to present our new research in this remarkable setting. These were our topics: Electromyographic Signals from Auricular Muscles Show Distinct Patterns During Effortful Listening and Different Modes of Auditory Attention, A. Schroeer Pinna Related Transfer Function and Auricular Motor Activity, L. Almasu Post-Auricular Muscle Activity Reflecting the Exogenous Capture of Attention, L. Renz It was a great opportunity to exchange with other researchers in our field and we are now back with a ton of ideas, looking forward to visit HeAL again in 2025!

Visiting Professor: Steven Hillyard

Steven Hillyard, an expert on visual and auditory attention from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), visited SNNU from September 29 to October 6, 2023. During his visit, he worked on collaborating projects in the field of selective auditory attention along the auditory pathway in humans. Some recent results of this collaboration can be found here:

For more information about Steven Hillyard, you can visit his UCSD profile at:
https://profiles.ucsd.edu/steven.hillyard

SNNU@EMBC2023

We recently attended the 45th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, in Sydney, Australia. We look back on insightful presentations and a great exchange with the biomedical engineering community.

Remote detection of COVID-19

A few weeks ago, we started a new study on the corona virus at the testing center in Saarbrücken (Messegelände Saarbrücken). In cooperation with the ZF AG, the Kassenärztliche Vereinigung Saarland (KV) and the Bundeswehr we are investigating whether symptoms of COVID-19 can be detected contactlessly with a battery of cameras and microphones. We expect the first results in summer 2020.
The applied methodology allows no reliable diagnosis, but could help to reduce the number of unnecessary laboratory tests by the early identification of suspected cases of SARS-CoV2 infections.
On May, 12 2020, local and regional political representatives (Christian Seel – Saarland State Secretary, Peter Gillo – director of the regional association Saarbrücken and Uwe Conradt – Mayor of Saarbrücken), as well as a delegation of the Bundeswehr (Generalleutnant Schelleis, Oberst Schirra and Oberst Heisner) visited our research setup. A short film interview about this visit can be found in the SR media center:
Studie zu kontaktlosen Corona-Tests angelaufen.
Also, the regional newspaper published two articles with additional information about our COVID-19 study:
Forscher aus dem Saarland wollen COVID Symptome mit Kameras finden ,
Saarländische Forscher untersuchen neues COVID-19 Testverfahren.

Invited talk

“The Systems Neuroscience of Spatial Auditory Attention”: Prof. Strauss talks about the neuroscience of auditory attention at the University of Hawaii, 18 July 2019, Room: Sakamaki c204b, Manoa Campus