Barbara Shinn-Cunningham 
Professor | Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA, UNITED STATES
Biography
Barbara Shinn-Cunningham is the director of the Carnegie Mellon Neuroscience Institute. Her research explores such issues as how do we make sense of speech and other sounds, how our brain networks allow us to focus attention and suppress uninteresting sound and whether we can develop new assistive communication devices and technologies that leverage knowledge from auditory neuroscience to aid listeners with hearing impairment or other communication disorders. Her work uses behavioral, neuroimaging and computational methods to understand auditory processing, from how sound is encoded in the inner ear to how cognitive networks modulate the representation of auditory information in the brain.
Areas of Expertise (1)
Neuroscience
Education (3)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Ph.D., Electrical & Computer Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: M.S., Electrical & Computer Engineering
Brown University: B.S., Electrical Engineering
Media Appearances (3)
Otonomy Reports Positive Top-Line Results from Phase 2a Clinical Trial of OTO-413 in Patients with Hearing Loss
Benzinga online
2022-04-20
"The most common complaint of patients seeking treatment for hearing loss is difficulty hearing a conversation in a noisy setting," said Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, Ph.D., Director, Carnegie Mellon Neuroscience Institute and Cowan Professor of Auditory Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, Psychology, and Electrical & Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. "Breakthrough research conducted over the last decade suggests that damage to cochlear synapses plays a role in this speech-in-noise hearing difficulty and that treatment with a neurotrophic factor, such as BDNF, offers potential for repair. I am encouraged by these results for OTO-413 and look forward to its continued development as an option for patients to regain functional hearing."
Otonomy Reports Positive Top-Line Results from Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial of OTO-413 in Patients with Hearing Loss
Investors Hub online
2020-12-17
“Difficulty hearing a conversation with noise in the background is a common complaint by patients presenting for hearing loss treatment and this is only expected to grow as the population ages and noise exposure in our society continues to increase,” said Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, Ph.D., Director, Carnegie Mellon Neuroscience Institute and Cowan Professor of Auditory Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, Psychology, and Electrical & Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. “Extensive research conducted over the last decade suggests that damage to cochlear synapses plays a role in this speech-in-noise hearing difficulty. Treatment with a neurotrophic factor such as BDNF offers potential for repair. I am encouraged by these initial results for OTO-413 across multiple speech-in-noise hearing tests and look forward to its continued development as an option for patients to regain functional hearing.”
When Your Eyes Move, So Do Your Eardrums
The Atlantic online
2018-01-23
Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, from Boston University, also studies the neuroscience of hearing, and she is more circumspect. “It is a very interesting and previously unknown phenomenon, which may turn out to be incredibly important,” she says, “But so far, there is no evidence it is. We just don’t yet know why it happens or what it means.”
