Carles Escera graduated in Psychology at University of Barcelona (UB) in 1987, and after his PhD in 1993, he gained postdoctoral experience at the University of Helsinki (Finland) in 1993, 1994, 1996, 1999. He became Associate Professor in 1997, and Full Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in 2010. He was visiting professor at the University of Bremen (Germany) and Fellow of the Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst (Germany) in 2004 and 2005. He has published over 120 papers in major journals in Psychology and Neurosciences (over 5500 citation; h index = 40). He has been the principal investigator of more than 30 research projects, including one from the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 program, and several from the FP4, FP5 and FP7. Recently, he coordinated an ERANET.NEURON project from EU and a Marie Slodowska-Curie action of FP7. Currently, he is involved in an ERC Advanced-Grant in Archaeology  (ARTSOUNDSCAPES) as the leader of two workpackages (psychoacoustics and neuroscience).

Research interests

His research group, the Brainlab at UB is interested in understanding the mysteries of the mind by deciphering the mechanisms of brain function, including those of attention, auditory perception, musical processing, and emotion, and how these mechanisms are disrupted in disorders such as autism, dyslexia, schizophrenia or attention deficit disorder. The approach in Brainlab is based on the recording of the human electroencephalogram (EEG) to analyze event-related brain potentials and oscillatory activity. This approach is complemented with magnetoencephalography (MEG), functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) and genetic analysis. At present, the Brainlab research is driven by the idea that even deep structures within the brain, such as the auditory brainstem, play a critical role in auditory cognition, contributing to speech, music and rhythm perception.

Keywords

Psychology, cognitive neuroscience, attention, auditory perception