In this episode, I talk with Steve Politzer-Ahles and Bernard Jap about their paper ‘Can the mismatch negativity really be elicited by abstract linguistic contrasts?’, which was recently published as a Registered Report in Neurobiology of Language. Politzer-Ahles S, Jap BAJ. Can the mismatch negativity really be elicited by abstract linguistic contrasts? Neurobiol Lang 2024; 5: 818–843. [doi] Politzer-Ahles website Jap website

In the episode, I talk with Julius Fridriksson, Professor of Communication Sciences and Vice President for Research at the University of South Carolina, about what's going on with the NIH since the recent change of administration.

In this episode, I talk with Masud Husain, Professor of Neurology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, about his recent editorial ‘A mountain of small things’.Husain websiteHusain M. A mountain of small things. Brain 2024; 147: 739. [doi]

In this episode, I talk with Maaike Vandermosten, Associate Professor in the Department of Neurosciences at KU Leuven, about the neural basis of developmental dyslexia, and neuroplasticity in recovery from aphasia.Vandermosten websiteVanderauwera J, Wouters J, Vandermosten M, Ghesquière P. Early dynamics of white matter deficits in children developing dyslexia. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2017; 27: 69-77. [doi]Beelen C, Vanderauwera J, Wouters J, Vandermosten M, Ghesquière P. Atypical gray matter in ch...

In this episode, I talk with Dorothy Bishop, Emeritus Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at the University of Oxford, about her work on developmental langauge disorder and its neural basis.Bishop websiteBishop DVM. Comprehension in developmental language disorders. Dev Med Child Neurol. 1979;21:225-38. [doi]Bishop DVM, Snowling MJ, Thompson PA, Greenhalgh T, CATALISE consortium. CATALISE: A multinational and multidisciplinary Delphi consensus study: Identifying language impairments in...

In this episode, I talk with Rob Cavanaugh, Research Data Analyst at the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics Center at Northeastern University, about his dissertation ‘Determinants of multilevel discourse outcomes in anomia treatment for aphasia’.Cavanaugh websiteCavanaugh, R. Determinants of multilevel discourse outcomes in anomia treatment for aphasia. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. [dissertation]

In the episode, I talk with Jean-Rémi King, Research scientist and team leader at Meta AI, and Associate Researcher at CNRS, École Normale Supérieure, about three recent papers from his lab on deep learning algorithms, natural language processing, and the brain.King websiteMillet J, Caucheteux C, Orhan P, Boubenec Y, Gramfort A, Dunbar E, Pallier C, King J-R. Toward a realistic model of speech processing in the brain with self-supervised learning. In Advances in Neural Information Processing ...

In this episode, I talk with Laura Gwilliams, soon-to-be Assistant Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Data Science at Stanford University, about her recent paper ‘Neural dynamics of phoneme sequences reveal position-invariant code for content and order’.Gwilliams lab websiteGwilliams L, King JR, Marantz A, Poeppel D. Neural dynamics of phoneme sequences reveal position-invariant code for content and order. Nat Commun 2022; 13: 6606. [doi]

In this episode, I talk with Alexander Huth, Assistant Professor of Neuroscience and Computer Science at the University of Texas, Austin, about his work using functional imaging and advanced computational methods to model how the brain processes language and represents meaning.Huth lab websiteHuth AG, Nishimoto S, Vu AT, Gallant JL. A continuous semantic space describes the representation of thousands of object and action categories across the human brain. Neuron 2012; 76: 1210-24. [doi]Huth ...

In this episode, I talk with Liina Pylkkänen, Professor of Linguistics and Psychology at NYU, about her research program, and in particular her recent paper ‘Disentangling semantic composition and semantic association in the left temporal lobe’.Pylkkänen lab websiteLi J, Pylkkänen L. Disentangling semantic composition and semantic association in the left temporal lobe. J Neurosci 2021; 41: 6526-38. [doi]

In this episode, I talk with Eddie Chang, Professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, about his recent paper ‘Speech computations of the human superior temporal gyrus’.Chang lab websiteBhaya-Grossman I, Chang EF. Speech computations of the human superior temporal gyrus. Annu Rev Psychol 2022; 73: 79-102. [doi | pdf]Chang EF, Rieger JW, Johnson K, Berger MS, Barbaro NM, Knight RT. Categorical speech representation in human superior temporal gyrus. Nat Neur...

In this episode, I talk with Olivia Leow, who experienced an awake craniotomy for resection of a brain tumor surrounded by language areas in her left posterior temporal lobe.Vanderbilt Brain Cancer Patient Assistance Fund, established by Olivia LeowDiachek E, Morgan VL, Wilson SM. Adaptive language mapping paradigms for presurgical language mapping. AJNR Am J Neuroradiol 2022; in press. [pdf]Wilson SM, Yen M, Eriksson DK. An adaptive semantic matching paradigm for reliable and valid language ...

In this episode, I talk with Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor and Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at MIT and Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona. After starting with a discussion of the early development of Chomsky’s key ideas, our conversation is centered on the relationship between generative linguistics and the neuroscience of language.Grodzinsky Y, Finkel L. The neurology of empty categories: Aphasics’ failure to detect ungrammaticality. J Cogn Neurosci 1998;...

In this episode, I talk with Fred Dick, Professor of Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychological Sciences at Birkbeck, University of London, about his work, with a focus on his recent paper ‘Extensive tonotopic mapping across auditory cortex is recapitulated by spectrally directed attention and systematically related to cortical myeloarchitecture’.Dick F, Bates E, Wulfeck B, Utman JA, Dronkers N, Gernsbacher MA. Language deficits, localization, and grammar: evidence for...

In this episode, I talk with Keith Josephs, Professor of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, about his work on the anatomy and neuropathology of progressive speech and language disorders.Josephs KA, Duffy JR, Strand EA, Whitwell JL, Layton KF, Parisi JE, et al. Clinicopathological and imaging correlates of progressive aphasia and apraxia of speech. Brain 2006; 129: 1385-98. [doi]Josephs KA, Hodges JR, Snowden JS, Mackenzie IR, Neumann M, Mann DM, et al. Neuropathological bac...

In this episode, I talk with Cathy Price, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London, about her pioneering work on functional neuroimaging of the language network, whether there are really such things as “language regions”, degeneracy, predicting and explaining language outcomes after stroke, and more.Price C, Wise R, Ramsay S, Friston K, Howard D, Patterson K, Frackowiak R. Regional response differences within t...

In this episode, I talk with Elissa Newport, Professor of Neurology and Rehabilitation Medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center, about her work on the neural and cognitive underpinnings of language development, including statistical learning, language after perinatal stroke, lateralization, plasticity, the critical period, and more.Saffran JR, Aslin RN, Newport EL. Statistical learning by 8-month-old infants. Science 1996; 274: 1926-8. [doi]Newport EL, Landau B, Seydell-Greenwald A, T...

In this episode, I talk with Cory Shain, postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, about his recent fMRI study of working memory demand in naturalistic language comprehension.Shain C, Blank IA, Fedorenko E, Gibson E, Schuler W. Robust effects of working memory demand during naturalistic language comprehension in language-selective cortex. bioRxiv 2021; 2021.09.18.460917. [doi]Cory Shain’s websiteEvLabTedLab

In this episode, I talk with Rodrigo Braga, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Northwestern University, about his recent paper on identifying the language network from functional connectivity analyses of resting state data.Braga RM, DiNicola LM, Becker HC, Buckner RL. Situating the left-lateralized language network in the broader organization of multiple specialized large-scale distributed networks. J Neurophysiol 2020; 124: 1415-48. [doi]Braga labBuckner lab

In this episode, I talk with Ina Bornkessel-Schlesewsky, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of South Australia, about neurotypology, predictive coding, and dorsal and ventral streams.Bornkessel-Schlesewsky lab websiteBornkessel I, Zysset S, Friederici AD, Von Cramon DY, Schlesewsky M. Who did what to whom? The neural basis of argument hierarchies during language comprehension. NeuroImage 2005; 26: 221-33. [doi]Bornkessel-Schlesewsky I, Schlesewsky M. Reconciling time, space...