Emily BJ Coffey

Concordia University Montreal · Department of Psychology

In human cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology studies, laboratory-based research tasks have been important to establish principles of brain function and its relationship to behaviour; however, they differ greatly from real-life experiences. Several elements of real-life situations that impact human performance, such as stressors, are difficul...

Closed-loop auditory stimulation (CLAS) is a brain modulation technique in which sounds are timed to enhance or disrupt endogenous neurophysiological events. CLAS of slow oscillation up-states in sleep is becoming a popular tool to study and enhance sleep's functions, as it increases slow oscillations, evokes sleep spindles and enhances memory cons...

Closed-loop auditory stimulation (CLAS) is a brain modulation technique in which sounds are timed to enhance or disrupt endogenous neurophysiological events. CLAS of slow oscillation up-states in sleep is becoming a popular tool to study and potentially enhance sleep's functions, as it can increase slow oscillations, evoke sleep spindles, and enhan...

Closed-loop brain stimulation refers to capturing neurophysiological measures such as electroencephalography (EEG), quickly identifying neural events of interest, and producing auditory, magnetic or electrical stimulation so as to interact with brain processes precisely. It is a promising new method for fundamental neuroscience and perhaps for clin...

Targeted memory reactivation (TMR) during post-learning sleep is known to enhance motor memory consolidation but the underlying neurophysiological processes remain unclear. Here, we confirm the beneficial effect of auditory TMR on motor performance. At the neural level, TMR enhanced slow wave (SW) characteristics. Additionally, greater TMR-related...

Individuals with misophonia, a disorder involving extreme sound sensitivity, report significant anger, disgust, and anxiety in response to select but usually common sounds. While estimates of prevalence within certain populations such as college students have approached 20%, it is currently unknown what percentage of people experience misophonic re...

Sleep can increase consolidation of new knowledge and skills. It is less clear whether sleep plays a role in other aspects of experience-dependent neuroplasticity, which underlie important human capabilities such as spoken language processing. Theories of sensory learning differ in their predictions; some imply rapid learning at early sensory level...

Targeted memory reactivation (TMR) during post-learning sleep is known to enhance motor memory consolidation but the underlying neurophysiological processes remain unclear. Here, we confirm the beneficial effect of auditory TMR on motor performance. At the neural level, TMR enhanced slow waves (SW) characteristics. Additionally, greater TMR-related...

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method of measuring the brain's electrical activity, using non-invasive scalp electrodes. In this article, we propose the Portiloop, a deep learning-based portable and low-cost device enabling the neuroscience community to capture EEG, process it in real time, detect patterns of interest, and respond with precisely...

There is much debate about the existence and function of neural oscillatory mechanisms in the auditory system. The frequency- following response (FFR) is an index of neural periodicity encoding that can provide a vehicle to study entrainment in frequency ranges relevant to speech and music processing. Criteria for entrainment include the presence o...

There is much debate about the existence and function of neural oscillatory entrainment mechanisms in the auditory system. The frequency-following response (FFR) is an index of neural periodicity encoding that can provide a vehicle to study entrainment in frequency ranges relevant to speech and music processing. Criteria for entrainment include the...

Hearing-in-noise (HIN) perception is a challenging task that is critical to human function – but how the brain accomplishes it is not well understood. A candidate mechanism proposes that the neural representation of an attended auditory stream is enhanced relative to background sound via a combination of bottom-up and top-down mechanisms. To date,...

The auditory frequency-following response (FFR) is a non-invasive index of the fidelity of sound encoding in the brain, and is used to study the integrity, plasticity, and behavioral relevance of the neural encoding of sound. In this Perspective, we review recent evidence suggesting that, in humans, the FFR arises from multiple cortical and subcort...

Since the beginning of space exploration, Mars and the moon have been examined via orbiters, landers, and rovers. More than 40 missions have targeted Mars, and over 100 have been sent to the moon. Space agencies continue to focus on developing novel strategies and technologies for probing celestial bodies. Multirobot systems are particularly promis...

Background: Successful long-duration missions outside low-Earth orbit will depend on technical and physiological challenges under abnormal environmental conditions. Caves, characterized by absence of light, confinement, three-dimensional human movement and long-duration isolation, are identifiably one of the earliest examples of scientific enquiry...

The ability to segregate target sounds in noisy backgrounds is relevant both to neuroscience and to clinical applications. Recent research suggests that hearing-in-noise (HIN) problems are solved using combinations of sub-skills that are applied according to task demand and information availability. While evidence is accumulating for a musician adv...

Renewed interest in human space exploration has highlighted the gaps in knowledge needed for successful long-duration missions outside low-Earth orbit. Although the technical challenges of such missions are being systematically overcome, many of the unknowns in predicting mission success depend on human behavior and performance, knowledge of which...

Speech-in-noise (SIN) perception is a complex cognitive skill that affects social, vocational, and educational activities. Poor SIN ability particularly affects young and elderly populations, yet varies considerably even among healthy young adults with normal hearing. Although SIN skills are known to be influenced by top-down processes that can sel...

Speleology is a rather recent scientific discipline that investi- gates topics such as the geomorphology, hydrology, meteorol- ogy, biology and microbiology of underground environments. Since 1938, studies have also been conducted on human behavior and physiology. Despite the potential implications for preventing accidents during cave exploration a...

The ability to understand speech in the presence of competing sound sources is an important neuroscience question in terms of how the nervous system solves this computational problem. It is also a critical clinical problem that disproportionally affects the elderly, children with language-related learning disorders, and those with hearing loss. Rec...

The frequency-following response (FFR) is a measure of the brain’s periodic sound encoding. It is of increasing importance for studying the human auditory nervous system due to numerous associations with auditory cognition and dysfunction. Although the FFR is widely interpreted as originating from brainstem nuclei, a recent study using MEG suggeste...

Significance statement: The frequency following response (FFR) is an electroencephalograph signal that is used to explore how the auditory system encodes temporal regularities in sound, and which is related to differences in auditory function between individuals. It is known that brainstem nuclei contribute to the FFR, but recent findings of an ad...

The frequency following response (FFR) is a measure of the brain’s periodic sound encoding. It is of increasing importance for studying the human auditory nervous system due to numerous associations with auditory cognition and dysfunction. Although the FFR is widely interpreted as originating from brainstem nuclei, a recent study using magnetoencep...

Speech-in-noise (SIN) perception is a complex cognitive skill that affects social, vocational, and educational activities. Poor SIN ability particularly affects young and elderly populations, yet varies considerably even among healthy young adults with normal hearing. Although SIN skills are known to be influenced by top-down processes that can sel...

The scalp-recorded frequency-following response (FFR) is a measure of the auditory nervous system's representation of periodic sound, and may serve as a marker of training-related enhancements, behavioural deficits, and clinical conditions. However, FFRs of healthy normal subjects show considerable variability that remains unexplained. We investiga...

The auditory frequency-following response (FFR) to complex periodic sounds is used to study the subcortical auditory system, and has been proposed as a biomarker for disorders that feature abnormal sound processing. Despite its value in fundamental and clinical research, the neural origins of the FFR are unclear. Using magnetoencephalography, we ob...

Supplementary Figures 1-8

Skill learning results in changes to brain function, but at the same time individuals strongly differ in their abilities to learn specific skills. Using a 6-week piano-training protocol and pre- and post-fMRI of melody perception and imagery in adults, we dissociate learning-related patterns of neural activity from pre-training activity that predic...

http://hdl.handle.net/2117/2269 Earthquakes and their after-effects claim thousands of lives and cause enormous property damage each year. Early warning of impending seismological events has the potential to reduce human suffering and physical damage resulting from these natural disasters. Reliable earthquake precursors have yet to be identified, b...

Training studies, in which the structural or functional neurophysiology is compared before and after expertise is acquired, are increasingly being used as models for understanding the human brain’s potential for reorganization. It is proving difficult to use these results to answer basic and important questions like how task training leads to both...

Experiences can alter functional properties of neurons in primary sensory neocortex but it is poorly understood how stimulus-reward associations contribute to these changes. Using in vivo two-photon calcium imaging in mouse primary visual cortex (V1), we show that association of a directional visual stimulus with reward results in broadened orienta...

The ability to continuously monitor workload in a real-world environment would have important implications for the offline design of human machine interfaces as well as the real-time improvement of interaction between humans and machines. We explored the usefulness of features derived from electroencephalography (EEG) spectra, near infrared spectro...

Recent advances in non-invasive brain–machine or brain–computer interfaces (BMIs/BCIs) have demonstrated that humans can control computers or simple robotic devices using only brain signals. These successes have lead to the suggestion that BMIs could significantly improve the safety and efficiency of space operations. Electroencephalography (EEG) a...

http://hdl.handle.net/2117/2269 Earthquakes and their after-effects claim thousands of lives and cause enormous property damage each year. Early warning of impending seismological events has the potential to reduce human suffering and physical damage resulting from these natural disasters. Reliable earthquake precursors have yet to be identified, b...

Earthquakes occurring around the world each year cause thousands of deaths, millions of dollars in damage to infrastructure, and incalculable human suffering. In recent years, satellite technology has been a significant boon to response efforts following an earthquake and its after-effects by providing mobile communications between response teams a...

A generally accepted method to ensure behaviouralinstruction transfers to the task environment is to provide training situations in which the trainee has theopportunity to practice and receive feedback on their behaviour in a real or simulated situation. However, inmany applications the possibility of having extensive behavioural training is limite...

Background and Purpose: Experience with space missions and from various analogue environments suggests that the considerable stressors present in long duration missions outside of low Earth orbit could be partially mitigated by careful planning, improved communication technology, and innovative ground support; however, the major challenge of an int...

Earthquakes represent a major hazard for populations around the world, causing frequent loss of life, human suffering, and enormous damage to homes, other buildings, and infrastructure. The Technology Resources for Earthquake Monitoring and Response (TREMOR) proposal is designed to address this problem. This proposal recommends two prototype system...