John Van Opstal - Biography#
Prof. van Opstal's lab is highly recognized (h-index: 46; 6200 citations; highly successful granting record; frequent invitations for seminars and schools) for its unique combination of high-level psychophysics, quantitative electrophysiological analyses of single-unit studies, and his group's systems-theoretical modeling approaches. This unique position was recognized by the EU, which awarded him the prestigious Marie-Curie Innovative Doctoral Programme grant (2013) of 3.5 M€ for his HealthPAC project (“Perception and Action in Health and Disease”, 14 PhD students), and a 2.6 M€ ERC advanced Grant (2016) for his ORIENT project (“Goal-directed eye-head coordination in dynamic multisensory environments”).
Prof. van Opstal studies sound perception and localization in healthy humans, monkeys, and patients, employing a unique and influential approach by regarding sound localization as an action-perception problem, probing the system with rapid saccadic eye-head gaze-control strategies. With this approach, he studies the very earliest (first few hundred ms) results of the underlying neuro-computational mechanisms. In a series of high-impact plasticity studies , he was the first to demonstrate that human sound localization lacks a critical period (unlike vision), is highly adaptive to acoustic changes, and that its plasticity is driven by vision. Several labs internationally have now adopted his approach.
In addition, Prof. van Opstal also studies the motor strategies and neurophysiological basis of eye-head coordination, yielding highly influential modeling approaches and theoretical analyses of neural responses and behavior. He was the first to show that the midbrain Superior Colliculus (SC) rapidly drives the eyes to targets in compliance with the 3D kinematics of Listing’s law. Also this work has had a significant impact on the field. His single-unit recordings further demonstrated that an eye-position signal modulates cells in monkey Inferior Colliculus, and modeled, how its neurons can thus provide eye-centered sound locations to the SC. In 2005, he received the most prestigious personal research grant in The Netherlands (VICI, 1.4M€) for his work.
The tight interplay between sensorimotor signals in sound localization is equally important, but so far neglected, for multisensory integration. Van Opstal made the case, and was the first to show, that audiovisual integration is particularly important in complex environments with many competing stimuli, as it greatly enhances orienting performance. Part of his current activities aim to apply his knowledge of sensorimotor integration and sensory spatial perception: thanks to his ERC Advanced grant he has now set up an active neuromorphic robotics collaboration project with the Instituto Técnico Superior in Lisbon. He further collaborates with the hearing-aid industry on projects that help to improve hearing in the hearing impaired. Through a grant from the Dutch Technological Foundation (STW), he is also working on a sensorineural feedback system that leads to improved cochlear implant settings.
A more detailed CV can be found at http://www.mbfys.ru.nl/~johnvo/cv_JVO_2017.pdf
