Download C. Contribution to Science

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
NAME
Reyna L. Gordon
eRA COMMONS USER NAME
gordonr1
POSITION TITLE
Research Assistant Professor
EDUCATION/TRAINING
INSTITUTION AND LOCATION
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA
DEGREE
(if applicable)
B.Mus.
MM/YY
FIELD OF STUDY
05/01
Vocal Arts, Italian
University of Provence – Aix-Marseille I, Marseille,
France
M.S.
07/04
Neuroscience
Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL
Ph.D.
08/10
Complex Systems and
Brain Sciences
Postdoctoral
n/a
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Developmental
Disabilities and
Cognitive Neuroscience
A. Personal Statement
I am a cognitive neuroscientist interested in the mechanisms involved in music perception and how they relate
to language and other non-musical skills. To this end, I have over a decade of experience with cognitive
neuroscience methods with a focus on using electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate brain activity
involved in auditory perception. My graduate work used singing as a model to compare music and language
cognition, and my postdoctoral work applies these concepts to studying music and other auditory skills in
people with developmental disabilities, adding to current understanding of the comparison of neural resources
used by language and music. My interest in translational research led me to a postdoctoral position at the
Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, where I have collaborated on a number of multi-disciplinary studies that
investigate auditory processing in individuals with developmental disabilities, including Specific Language
Impairment, Williams syndrome, and Rett syndrome. I also developed and implemented an EEG analysis
workshop with a customized Matlab-based EEG analysis tutorial toolkit, which I then utilized in multiple studies.
In my faculty position at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, I am Director of the Music Cognition
Laboratory, which is focused on rhythm skills and how they relate to other skills such as language and social
development. I am also a founding member of our new cross-campus initiative in Music, Mind & Society, for
which I am director of the Department of Otolaryngology’s arm of the Program.
B. Positions and Honors
Positions and Employment
2001 – 2005
Translator/English Tutor, self-employed
2003 – 2004
Master’s Student/Research Technician, Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives de la
Méditerranée, Marseille, France
2005 – 2010
Doctoral Student/Teaching Assistant/Research Assistant, Florida Atlantic University,
Boca Raton, FL
2011 – 2012
Postdoctoral Trainee, Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network, Vanderbilt University,
Nashville, TN
2010 – 2013
Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
2014 (August) – 2015 (June):
Research Fellow, Department of Otolaryngology and Vanderbilt Kennedy
Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN
July 2015- present
Research Assistant Professor, Department of Otolaryngology, Vanderbilt University
Medical Center
July 2015-present
Director, Music Cognition Lab and Program for Music Mind Society, Department of
Otolaryngology, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Sept. 2015- present Member, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center
Fellowships
2006 – 2007
2007 – 2008
2008 – 2009
National Institute of Mental Health Pre-doctoral Trainee Fellowship
American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowship
Dr. Daniel B. and Aurel B. Newell Doctoral Fellowship
Other Experience and Professional Memberships
2006
Entrainment Network
2008- present
Ad-hoc reviewer: PLoS ONE, Psychology of Music, Developmental Neuropsychology,
Psychological Research, Archives of Medical Research, Psychomusicology: Music,
Mind, & Brain, Music Perception, Journal of Neurolinguistics, Speech Language and
Hearing, Frontiers in Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience
2008 – 2012
American Association of University Women
2009 – Present
Society for Music Perception and Cognition
2010 – Present
Society for the Neurobiology of Language
2010 – Present
State of Tennessee Council of Certified Professional Midwifery (Consumer Member)
2011 – 2012
Association for Women in Science
2013 – present
Acoustical Society of America
2014 – present
American Cochlear Implant Alliance
2014
Participant at ASHA Lessons for Success (grantsmanship workshop)
2013-2015
Conference Co-Chair, Biennial meeting of the Society for Music Perception and
Cognition (hosted by Vanderbilt, August 1-5, 2015).
Honors/Awards
2004
2007
2007
2012
2013
Best Poster Award, Conference on Interdisciplinary Musicology
Florida Atlantic University Graduate Committee Travel Grant
SEMPRE Bursary Travel Award
Theodore Tjossem Travel Award
Honorable Mention, Poster at Vanderbilt University Kennedy Center Science Day
C. Contribution to Science
1. Neural bases of linguistic and musical aspects of song perception
At the time that I began my Master’s degree in 2003 only a handful of studies had examined the neural
basis of song with imaging methods, and only a relatively small number of studies had compared language
and music perception in general. Two publications resulted from the new paradigms we developed and
tested during my Master’s thesis work: in the ERP paper, we reported an exciting finding that the N400
effect, a well-established marker of semantic processing, was modulated by musical melody in song,
suggesting that variations in musical features affect word processing in sung language (Gordon, Schön,
Magne, Astésano, & Besson, 2010, PLoS One). Those ERP results, showing interactions between the
linguistic and musical dimensions of song, coincided with results obtained in the fMRI study showing
widespread, interactive involvement between brain areas recruited to perceive words and melodies, and
thus argue against functional specificity of brain areas for language and musical processing (Schön,
Gordon, Campagne, Magne, Astésano, Anton, & Besson, 2010, NeuroImage).

Schön, D., Gordon, R. L., & Besson, M. (2005). Musical and Linguistic Processing in Song Perception.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences (1060), pp. 71-81. PMID: 16597752.
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Schön, D., Gordon, R.L., Campagne, A., Magne, C., Astésano, C., Anton, J.L., Besson, M. (2010).
Similar cerebral networks in language, music and song perception. NeuroImage 51, pp. 450-461.
PMID: 15102118.
Gordon, R.L., Schön, D., Magne, C., Astésano, C., Besson, M. (2010). Words and melody are
intertwined in perception of sung words: EEG and behavioral evidence. PLoS ONE 5(3): e9889, pp. 112. PMCID: PMC2847603.
Gordon, R.L., Magne, C.L., Large, E.W. (2011). EEG Correlates of Song Prosody: A new look at the
relationship between linguistic and musical rhythm. Frontiers in Psychology: Auditory Cognitive
Neuroscience 2:352, pp. 1-13. PMCID: PMC3225926.
2. Auditory processing in developmental disabilities
A substantial portion of my postdoctoral work has used time-frequency and ERP analyses of EEG data to
examine on the dynamics of auditory perception and their relation to social cognition. In one study (Lense
et al, 2013, SCAN), we showed that the emotional valence of musical primes influenced the perception of
emotionally-valenced facial targets in people with Williams Syndrome. These modulations were reflected in
both behavioral data and EEG gamma oscillations, which are markers of cross-modal integration. As a
trainee in the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network, I conducted a study that looked at autism
spectrum features in children with single-gene disorders (Peters, Gordon & Key, 2014, J. of Child
Neurology). With an innovative combination of brain and behavioral methods, we demonstrated that brain
responses reflecting sensitivity to the mother’s voice were associated with higher social functioning, and
differentiated patterns of responses for over- vs. under-expression of MeCP2 protein.
 Peters, S.U., Gordon, R.L., Key, A.P. (2014). Induced gamma oscillations differentiate familiar and
novel voices in children with MECP2 Duplication and Rett syndromes. Journal of Child Neurology.
Epub ahead of print. PMID: 24776956.
 Lense, M.D., Gordon, R.L., Key, A. P., Dykens, E.M. (2014). Neural Correlates of Cross-Modal
Affective Priming by Music in Williams Syndrome. Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. 9:4,
529-37. PMID: 23386738.
 Lense, M.D., Gordon, R.L., Key, A.P., and Dykens, E.M. (2012). “Neural correlates of musical timbre
perception in Williams syndrome.” Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Musical
Perception and Cognition, (Thessaloniki, Greece). pp. 576-582.
http://icmpcescom2012.web.auth.gr/sites/default/files/papers/576_Proc.pdf
3. Rhythm and Language Development in Children
My innovative pre- and postdoctoral work laid the foundation for a long-term research program that looks at
the interface between language skills and rhythm abilities. As a postdoc, I designed a study, funded by an
internal grant that I co-wrote which investigates the relationship between morpho-syntactic competence
and rhythm in children with typical and atypical language development. We developed a new computerbased rhythm skills assessment tool that is appropriate for children. The results showed that 48% of the
variance in grammar skills was predicted by musical rhythm perception abilities in children with typical
development, even after controlling for differences in IQ and socio-economic status. This project has
recently been funded by an NIDCD R03 grant to extend the work to children with language impairment and
investigate mechanisms underlying the correlation between rhythm and grammar, which I obtained at the
end of my postdoctoral fellowship in mid-2015. I have also conducted a meta-analysis of studies on the
effects of music training on reading-related skills.
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Gordon, R.L., Shivers, C.M., Wieland, E.A., Kotz, S.A., Yoder, P.J., McAuley, J.D. (2014). Musical
rhythm discrimination explains individual differences in grammar skills in children. Developmental
Science. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 25195623.
Gordon, R.L., Jacobs, M.S., Schuele, C.M., McAuley, J.D. (2015) Perspectives on the rhythm-grammar
link and its implications for typical and atypical language development. Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences 1337, 16-25. PMID: 25773612.
Gordon, R.L., Fehd, H.M., McCandliss, B.M. (in revision). Current issues in determining the impact of
music training on reading skills: Meta-analysis and neuro-developmental framework. Frontiers in
Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience.

Magne, C., Gordon, R.L., Jordan, D. (in revision). Speech Rhythm Sensitivity and Musical Aptitude:
ERPs and Individual Differences. Brain & Language.
4. Institutional Cohesion and Infrastructure for Music Cognition research
I am involved in several different efforts to foster institutional support for Music and Mind research,
including: spearheading the bid to host a major international music cognition conference in August 2015
and co-chairing this conference http://vkc.mc.vanderbilt.edu/smpc2015/about/; organizing the poster
session at the Music & Mind event in June 2014; coordinating the Music and Brain Seminar & Discussion
Series, conducting an interest poll on the State of Music, Mind & Health research at Vanderbilt; and
participation as one of the core investigators in creating/writing an internal proposal for a new Program in
Music, Mind & Society at Vanderbilt, which was recently funded by the Chancellor’s Initiative.
http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2015/09/new-program-set-to-explore-effects-of-music-on-the-mind/. I am now
responsible for implementing this new cross-campus initiative.
D. Research Support
Ongoing Research Support
NIH/NIDCD 1 R03-DC014802-01
Rhythm in Atypical Language Development: Mechanisms and Individual Differences $478,489.
Gordon (PI)
07/15/15–07/14/18
Our preliminary work shows a strong association between musical rhythm and grammar skills in typically
developing children. The R03 extends this work to children with Specific language impairment (SLI, a disorder
which affects 7% of young children in the U.S.) to investigate the mechanisms underlying the association, and
to investigate rhythm deficits in this population and determine to what extent rhythm skills in these children are
predictive of their language difficulties in grammar and word learning.
Role: PI
Vanderbilt Chancellor’s Initiative (TIPs) Eavey (PI), Gordon (Co-Investigator)
The Science of Music Research: Creating a Program for Music, Mind & Society
07/01/15 – 06/30/17
$200,000.
This project allows us to form a trans-institutional interdisciplinary Program for Music, Mind and Society as a
hub to harness the intellectual capital and existing Vanderbilt resources to study the science of music and
society. The goal of the program will be to discover how music works, from molecules to neurons that
constitute the brain response, through explorations of how music training changes the brain, therapeutic uses
of music in clinical settings, ethnographic studies of the role of music in society, to predictive modeling of
musical popularity, and arts policy grounded in scientific research. I am the primary person responsible for
implementing this new cross-campus initiative, including supervising a pilot study on music intervention for
children with language disorders.
Completed Research Support
Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Hobbs Discovery Award, Yoder (PI), Gordon (Co-Investigator)
Investigating the Relationship between Syntax and Rhythm in SLI
01/26/12-06/30/15
$29,636
This pilot project used EEG and behavioral measures to study the relationship between rhythmic processing
and language skills in children with specific language impairment and with typical development. Dr. Yoder was
the pro-forma faculty PI, and I developed the proposal and implemented the project.