Developing dYNamic digital Auditory Measures and technOlogies (DYNAMO)
Project ID: 2228cd1444 (You will need this ID for your application)
Research Theme: Healthcare Technologies
UCL Lead department: Queen Square Institute of Neurology
Lead Supervisor: Jason Warren
Project Summary:
Why this research is important. We rely on our brains to interpret speech and other sounds in the hubbub of everyday life – this ‘brain hearing’ is vulnerable to healthy ageing from midlife as well as the effects of diseases such as dementia, and potentially a key target for digital tools to improve wellbeing and detection of difficulties. However, development of such brain hearing tools entails daunting technical challenges that remain largely unsolved. Who you will be working with. We are a diverse inter-disciplinary team of neurologists, psychologists, auditory neuroscientists and engineers sharing a common vision: that the complexity of real-world listening can be captured using innovative digital tools, to the benefit of population health and wellbeing. What you will be doing. This project aims to: i) harness state-of-the-art signal processing engineering techniques including ‘virtual-reality’ simulations to create real-world listening environments that can be measured and manipulated to assess and assist brain hearing ii) build a digital platform to embed these tools and deliver them remotely at scale, in flexible applications compatible with widely available smartphone technology iii) assess how well the tools perform in capturing brain hearing function in healthy young and healthy older listeners, and in people in the earliest stages of dementia – referenced to standard hearing tests such as pure tone audiometry and questionnaires assessing everyday hearing and communication function iv) derive candidate algorithms to guide future development of environmental modifications, ‘smart’ assistive hearing technologies and digital diagnostic instruments You will acquire a portfolio of transferrable skills encompassing auditory neuroscience, digital signal processing, and design of software platforms and virtual technologies. Who we are looking for. The project is ideally suited to an intellectually-curious, talented person from an engineering or brain science background, ready to embrace the immense challenges of intensely inter-disciplinary working across conventional academic divides.
What you will be doing. This project aims to: i) harness state-of-the-art digital engineering tools including ‘virtual-reality’ simulations to create real-world listening environments embedded in platforms suitable for delivery to older people at risk and in the stages of dementia ii) build clinical tests from these tools to diagnose earliest dementia-associated changes in real-world hearing function sensitively and rapidly iii) assess these tests as functional disease markers in cohorts of patients with two major dementias posing distinct diagnostic and management challenges – Alzheimer’s and primary progressive aphasia iv) explore the scalability of most promising tools and markers as screening technologies for diverse older populations, in particular remote assessment
You will acquire a portfolio of transferrable skills including neuropsychological assessment, hearing science, digital signal processing, platforms and virtual technologies.
Who we are looking for. The project is ideally suited to an intellectually-curious, talented person from a clinical, brain science or engineering background, ready to embrace the immense challenges of dementia and intensely interdisciplinary working across conventional academic divides.