Researcher Profile:
Richard D. Andreatta, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Division of Communication Sciences & Disorders
Department of Rehabilitation Sciences
Principal Interests
Principal area of research revolves on how the central nervous system (CNS) functionally gates somatosensory input (tactile and proprioceptive) and influences motor performance and perception in the human lower face during static and dynamic skilled orofacial tasks. Other research interests include orofacial force dynamics, laryngeal neurophysiology, aerodynamic assessment of the vocal tract, and sensory psychophysics and physiology.
In addition to his position with Department of Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Kentucky’s College of Health Science, Richard Adreatta is also a faculty associate in the Spinal Cord & Brain Injury Research Center (SCoBIRC) at the UK College of Medicine. Dr. Andreatta received his Ph.D. in Speech Physiology and Neuroscience in 1999 from Indiana University, Bloomington. Afterward, he completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders & Stroke at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. His post-doctoral work consisted of laryngeal neurophysiologic studies in the cat model.
Up until 2006, Dr, Andreatta worked at The University of Georgia as an Assistant Professor teaching courses in speech anatomy, physiology, voice, neuroanatomy and neurophysiology and performing basic research in the area communication neuroscience. At the University of Kentucky, Dr. Andreatta is the director of the Laboratory of Orofacial & Speech Sensorimotor Physiology. This state-of-the-art facility contains several specialized systems for testing, recording and analyzing orofacial muscle force, vocal tract aerodynamics, orofacial perception and sensory integrity of the lower face, as well as evoked brainstem-level orofacial reflex responses in as variety of human populations during different task dynamics.
Current Projects
- Psychophysical and force control strategies to explore how the perceptual detection of somatosensation delivered to the orofacial area in humans is altered during the performance of visually-guided and skilled oromotor behaviors
- Electromyographic (EMG) assessments and stimulus-evoked reflex analyses of the trigemino-facial system
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COLLEGE OF
Health Sciences
Equal Opportunity University