Elena Bolt

LIFE Fellow since 2022, University of Zurich

I am a PhD student at the University of Zurich and part of the Computational Neuroscience of Speech & Hearing research group led by Nathalie Giroud. I have a Master of Science in Psychology from the University of Zurich with a focus on cognitive neuroscience. My main interest is how the human brain processes spoken language. As part of my dissertation project, I am investigating speech processing in older adults. In my main project, entitled "Predicting cognitive status through the aging ear," I aim to identify neural markers of language processing that may be able to distinguish healthy older adults from those with symptoms of cognitive impairment (e.g., in patients diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment or dementia). For this purpose, I use neurophysiological recordings. Hearing loss plays a central role in my research, as it has recently been identified as an important potential risk factor for cognitive decline, and which can be mitigated, for example, by the use of a hearing aid. Other areas of interest include semantic and rhythmic processing of spoken language, and I am enthusiastic about state-of-the-art computational methods in auditory cognitive neuroscience.

Dissertation project:

Predicting cognitive status through the aging ear

Publications

Bolt, E., & Giroud, N. (2024). Auditory encoding of natural speech at subcortical and cortical levels is not indicative of cognitive decline. eNeuro, 11(5), Article ENEURO.0545-23.2024. https://doi.org/10.1523/ENEURO.0545-23.2024

Bolt, E., & Giroud, N. (2024). Neural encoding of linguistic speech cues is unaffected by cognitive decline, but decreases with increasing hearing impairment. Scientific Reports, 14, Article 19105. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-69602-1