Nathalie Giroud

Nathalie Giroud is a junior group leader in the Phonetics and Speech Sciences group at the Department of Computational Linguistics at the University of Zurich. Her group investigates mechanisms of language processing in the brain using a variety of neuroimaging techniques (e.g. EEG, MRI). Her research focuses on the neural underpinnings of speech perception difficulties in healthy individuals and older adults with hearing loss and age-related neuropathology such as Alzheimer’s disease. The long-term goal of her research is to develop rehabilitation strategies for audio-visual speech processing difficulties in healthy older adults and individuals with mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Nathalie Giroud received her doctorate in cognitive neuroscience and psychology at the University of Zurich in fall 2016 and has worked as a Postdoc within the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging and Concordia University in Montréal on topics such as the association between hearing loss and brain atrophy, cognitive mechanisms of audiovisual speech processing in older adults, and bilingualism and foreign language learning.

Nathalie Giroud obtained a prestigious Swiss National Science Foundation PRIMA grant to start her own research group (1.3 Mio. CHF) at the University of Zurich and won the Vontobel Award for Research on Age(ing) 2017.

 

Relevant publications:

  • Kurthen, I., Christen, A., Meyer, M. & Giroud, N., (submitted). Older adults’ oscillatory brain entrainment during processing of interrupted speech is a function of task difficulty. NeuroImage.
  • Jagoda, L., Wehrli, J., Kurthen, I., Neuschwander, P., Meyer, M. & Giroud, N., (submitted). Neural entrainment is impaired in older adults with hearing loss. An EEG-based audiovisual speech study. NeuroImage.
  • Giroud, N., Keller, M., Hirsiger, S., Dellwo, V. & Meyer, M. (2019). Bridging the brain structure – brain function gap in prosodic speech processing in older adults. Neurobiology of Aging, 80, 116–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2019.04.017
  • Giroud, N., Hirsiger, S., Muri, R., Kegel, A., Dillier, N. & Meyer, M. (2018). Neuroanatomical and resting state EEG power correlates of central hearing loss in older adults. Brain Structure and Function, 223(1), 145-163. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-017-1477-0
  • Giroud, N., Lemke, U., Reich, P., Matthes, K. L. & Meyer, M. (2017). The impact of hearing aids and age-related hearing loss on auditory plasticity across three months – An electrical neuroimaging study. Hearing Research, 353, 162–175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heares.2017.06.012