Assistant Professor
Institute for Health & Aging
Karen Chan Barrett, PhD, is an Assistant Professor jointly appointed at the Institute for Health & Aging (UCSF School of Nursing) and the Department of Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery (UCSF School of Medicine). As an Auditory Cognitive Neuroscientist, Dr. Barrett’s research bridges neuroscience, music, and health to uncover the intricate relationships between artistic creativity, music perception, and cognitive aging. Her work focuses on enhancing music perception for cochlear implant users, using neural imaging and cognitive outcomes to study the neuroscience of creativity, and exploring the transformative power of the arts, particularly music, to improve health and well-being in older adults with dementia and their care partners.
Publications
Personalizing Cochlear Implant Care in Single-Sided Deafness: A Distinct Paradigm from Bilateral Hearing Loss.
Journal of personalized medicine
Perfecting Sensory Restoration and the Unmet Need for Personalized Medicine in Cochlear Implant Users: A Narrative Review.
Brain sciences
Children engage neural reward structures for creative musical improvisation.
Scientific reports
Predictors of Emotional Prosody Identification by School-Age Children With Cochlear Implants and Their Peers With Normal Hearing.
Ear and hearing
Cochlear Implant Compression Optimization for Musical Sound Quality in MED-EL Users.
Ear and hearing
Multi-Voiced Music Bypasses Attentional Limitations in the Brain.
Frontiers in neuroscience
Perception of Child-Directed Versus Adult-Directed Emotional Speech in Pediatric Cochlear Implant Users.
Ear and hearing
Impact of Auditory-Motor Musical Training on Melodic Pattern Recognition in Cochlear Implant Users.
Otology & neurotology : official publication of the American Otological Society, American Neurotology Society [and] European Academy of Otology and Neurotology
Encyclopedia of Creativity. Volume 1. Runco, M. Pritzker, S. (Eds),
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and the Neural Correlates of Artistic Creative Production.
Unveiling artistic minds: case studies of creativity.
Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
Association Between Flat-Panel Computed Tomographic Imaging-Guided Place-Pitch Mapping and Speech and Pitch Perception in Cochlear Implant Users.
JAMA otolaryngology-- head & neck surgery
A tonal-language benefit for pitch in normally-hearing and cochlear-implanted children.
Scientific reports
Art and science: how musical training shapes the brain.
Frontiers in psychology
Specialization among the specialized: auditory brainstem function is tuned in to timbre.
Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior