Stein, Barry E., PhD
Title: Professor & Chair
Department: Neurobiology and Anatomy
Institution: Wake Forest School of Medicine
Mailing Address: Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 27157
Phone: (336) 716-4368
bestein@wakehealth.edu
Barry E. Stein is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurobiology & Anatomy at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, where he is also Professor of Neurology. He is also director of the joint Cognitive Neuroscience PhD Program between Wake Forest University and the University of Bologna in Italy.
His research objective is to understand the neural basis by which the brain is able to integrate information from multiple senses and how the process develops during early life. This process of multisensory integration is highly adaptive. It knits together information from different channels (e.g., vision, hearing, touch) to allow the brain to perceive a seamless sensory environment. It also enhances minimal signals and reduces environmental ambiguity so that events are better detected, localized, and identified. These are essential functions for normal interaction with the environment. One practical research objective has been to understand how the physiological properties of individual multisensory neurons and the networks in which they are embedded develop these capabilities as a result of early experience.[4] To this end multidisciplinary anatomical, physiological, behavioral and perceptual approaches are utilized to explore how early experience crafts the underlying neural circuits.
One of the long-term objectives of Dr. Stein’s research is to develop rehabilitative strategies to treat disorders of sensory processing. These include not only Sensory Processing Disorder; Autism; Attention Deficit Disorders; and Dyslexia, which are diagnosed in thousands of children every year, but also disorders induced by trauma and disease that can occur at any age. Many of these disorders share common problems in the ability to use the senses cooperatively and in segregating and aggregating environmental cues in meaningful ways.