Santani Teng
About my research interests
Auditory localization
Actions as simple as localizing an object or sound in space remain puzzling despite all we've learned in decades of studying sensory systems. For example, we know humans can localize sounds to a maximum precision of about 1 degree, but we have yet to identify the brain regions that carry such fine spatial information, nor do we know just how the cortex contributes to generating an internal representation of auditory space. I study auditory spatial localization using fMRI and TMS to identify the neural regions that perform position discrimination at the finest scales.
Crossmodal plasticity
About half the human neocortex is thought to be devoted to visual processing. If it were as simple as that, you'd expect a huge expanse of neural real estate to fall silent in blind people, who are deprived of the visual input that drives those brain regions. In fact, those areas remain active, often in response to auditory and tactile stimuli. What kinds of computations take place under these circumstances, and are these connections present in sighted people as well? I approach this question in part by studying the phenomenon of echolocation. Similarly to many bats and marine mammals, some blind echolocating humans (using reflected clicks emitted with the tongue) have demonstrated remarkable precision in navigation and object perception.
Other
Aside from this, I take great interest in eating, sleeping, and traveling.