Yonatan I. Fishman is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Neuroscience. Research in our laboratory examines neural mechanisms underlying auditory perception of speech, music, and other complex sounds at the cortical level. Of particular interest are the neural processes that allow the brain to perceptually separate spectrally and temporally overlapping sounds in complex acoustic environments, e.g., speakers’ voices at a cocktail party. These neural processes are studied via electrophysiological recordings of neural activity in auditory cortex of awake, behaving non-human primates. Parallel collaborative and translational studies involving both non-invasive and intracranial electrophysiological recordings in humans aim at relating mechanisms of complex sound processing in animal models and humans. This understanding will help guide the development of more effective clinical approaches to alleviating hearing difficulties in noisy environments, difficulties which are particularly acute in the elderly and hearing-impaired, and in children with certain speech and language disorders. In addition to conducting research, I serve as Co-Director of the Nervous System and Human Behavior course at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS IN PEER-REVIEWED JOURNALS (chronological order):

Fishman, Y.I., Reser, D.H., Arezzo, J.C. and Steinschneider, M.  Pitch versus spectral encoding of harmonic complex tones in primary auditory cortex of the awake monkey. Brain Res., 786 (1998): 18-30.

Steinschneider, M., Reser, D.H., Fishman, Y.I., Schroeder, C.E. and Arezzo, J.C. Click train encoding in primary auditory cortex of the awake monkey: Evidence for two mechanisms subserving pitch perception.  J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 104 (1998): 2935-2955.

Kirn, J. R., Fishman, Y., Sasportas, K., Alvarez-Buylla, A., and Nottebohm, F.  Fate of new neurons in adult canary high vocal center during the first 30 days after their formation.  J. Comp. Neurol. 411 (1999): 487-494.

Reser, D.H., Fishman, Y.I., Arezzo, J.C. and Steinschneider, M.  Binaural interactions in primary auditory cortex of the awake monkey.  Cerebral Cortex 10 (2000): 574-584.

Fishman, Y. I. Processing of Musical Sounds in Primary Auditory Cortex of the Awake Monkey. Doctoral dissertation, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University, (2000).

Fishman, Y.I., Reser, D.H., Arezzo, J.C. and Steinschneider, M.  Complex tone processing in primary auditory cortex of the awake monkey I.  Neural ensemble correlates of roughness. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 108 (2000): 235-246.

Fishman, Y.I., Reser, D.H., Arezzo, J.C. and Steinschneider, M.  Complex tone processing in Primary auditory cortex of the awake monkey II.  Pitch versus critical band representation. J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 108 (2000): 247-262.

Fishman, Y.I., Reser, D.H., Arezzo, J.C. and Steinschneider, M. Neural Correlates of Auditory Stream Segregation in Primary Auditory Cortex of the Awake Monkey. Hear. Res.151 (2001): 167-187.

Fishman, Y.I., Volkov, I.O., Noh, M.D., Garell, P.C., Bakken, H., Arezzo, J.C., Howard, M.A. and Steinschneider, M.  Consonance and dissonance of musical chords: Neural correlates in auditory cortex of monkeys and humans.  J. Neurophysiol. 86 (2001): 2761-2788.

Steinschneider, M., Fishman, Y.I. and Arezzo, J.C.  Representation of the voice onset time (VOT) speech parameter in population responses within primary auditory cortex of the awake monkey.  J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 114 (2003):1-15.

Fishman, Y.I., Arezzo, J.C. and Steinschneider, M.  Auditory stream segregation in monkey auditory cortex: effects of frequency separation, presentation rate, and tone duration.  J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 116 (2004): 1656-1670.

Steinschneider, M., Volkov I.O., Fishman, Y.I., Arezzo, J.C. and Howard III, M.A.  Intracortical responses in human and monkey primary auditory cortex support temporal processing mechanism for encoding of the voice onset (VOT) phonetic parameter.  Cereb. Cortex. 15 (2005):170-86.

Fishman, Y.I. and Steinschneider, M. Spectral resolution of monkey primary auditory cortex (A1) revealed with two-noise masking. J. Neurophysiol., 96 (2006): 1105-1115.

Steinschneider, M., Fishman, Y.I., Arezzo, J.C. Spectrotemporal Analysis of Evoked and Induced Electroencephalographic Responses in Primary Auditory Cortex (A1) of the Awake Monkey. Cerebral Cortex,18 (2007): 610-625.

Fishman, Y.I. and Steinschneider, M. Temporally dynamic frequency tuning of population responses in monkey primary auditory cortex. Hear. Res. 254 (2009): 64-76.

Fishman, Y.I. and Steinschneider, M. Neural correlates of auditory scene analysis based on inharmonicity in monkey primary auditory cortex. J. Neurosci. 30 (2010): 12480-12494.

Steinschneider, M. and Fishman, Y.I. Enhanced physiologic discriminability of stop consonants with prolonged formant transitions in awake monkeys based on the tonotopic organization of primary auditory cortex. Hear Res. 271 (2010): 103-114.

Fishman, Y.I., Micheyl, C., and Steinschneider, M. Neural mechanisms of rhythmic masking release in monkey primary auditory cortex: implications for models of auditory scene analysis. J. Neurophysiol. 107 (2012): 2366-2382.

Fishman, Y.I. and Steinschneider, M. Searching for the mismatch negativity (MMN) in primary auditory cortex of the awake monkey: Deviance detection or stimulus specific adaptation? J. Neurosci. 32 (2012): 15747-15758.

Fishman, Y.I., Micheyl, C., and Steinschneider, M. Neural representation of harmonic complex tones in primary auditory cortex of the awake monkey. J. Neurosci. 33 (2013):10312-23.

Steinschneider M., Nourski, K.V., and Fishman, Y.I. Representation of speech in human auditory cortex: Is it special? Hear Res. 305 (2013): 57-73.

Fishman, Y.I., Steinschneider, M., and Micheyl, C. Neural representation of concurrent harmonic sounds in monkey primary auditory cortex: Implications for models of auditory scene analysis. J. Neurosci. 34 (2014): 12425–12443.

Davidson, C.D., Fishman, Y.I., Puskás, I., Szemán, J., Sohajda, T., McCauliff, L.A., Sikora, J., Storch, J., Vanier, M.T., Szente, L., Walkley, S.U., Dobrenis, K. Efficacy and ototoxicity of different cyclodextrins in Niemann-Pick C disease. Ann Clin Transl Neurol. 3 (2016): 366-80.

Fishman, Y.I., Micheyl, C., and Steinschneider, M. Neural representation of concurrent vowels in macaque primary auditory cortex. eNeuro 3(3) e0071-16 (2016): 1–15.

Fishman, Y.I., Kim, M., and Steinschneider, M. A crucial test of the population separation model of auditory stream segregation in macaque primary auditory cortex. J. Neurosci. 37 (2017): 10645-10655.

Fishman, Y.I., Lee, W-W., and Sussman, E. Learning to predict: Neuronal signatures of learned expectancy in human auditory evoked potentials. NeuroImage (2021), In Press.

Invited Review Articles (Peer-Reviewed):

Fishman, Y.I. The mechanisms and meaning of the mismatch negativity. Brain Topogr. 27 (2014): 500-526.

Book Chapters:

Fishman, Y.I. and Steinschneider, M. Ch. 10. Formation of Auditory Streams, In, A.R. Palmer and A. Rees (Eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Auditory Science: Auditory Brain. Oxford University Press, pp. 215-245 (2010).