Amber Leaver

Amber Leaver

Amber Leaver, Ph.D. 
Ph.D. in Neuroscience, Georgetown University (2010) 
M.A. in Psychology, Bucknell University (2003) 
B.A. in Linguistics and Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (2001)

Amber’s research explores the neural basis of human sensory perception, particularly how people “hear” their worlds. Her work reflects the breadth of that interest, from the basic organizing principles of auditory cortex to the complexity of auditory memory formation and retrieval. Amber uses neuroimaging techniques to focus on those themes: How the intricate spectrotemporal building-blocks of sound are processed in auditory cortex, how the sounds of speech and music are bound together across time, and how expertise, medical conditions, and other experiences can influence perception.

Publications

  • Leaver AM, Seydell-Greenwald A, Turesky TK, Morgan S, Kim HJ, Rauschecker JP (under review) Cortico-limbic morphology separates tinnitus from tinnitus distress. 
  • Leaver AM, Renier L, Chevillet MA, Morgan S, Kim HJ, Rauschecker JP (2011) Dysregulation of limbic and auditory networks in tinnitus. Neuron 69(1), 33-43. 
  • Leaver AM & Rauschecker JP (2010) Cortical representation of natural complex sounds: effects of acoustic features and auditory object category. Journal of Neuroscience 30(22), 7604-12. 
  • Leaver AM, Van Lare J, Zelinski B, Halpern AR, Rauschecker JP (2009) Brain activation during anticipation of sound sequences. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(8), 2477-85.