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 website Bishop 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 children. PLoS One. 2016;11:e0158753. [doi] Bishop DVM, Snowling MJ, Thompson PA, Greenhalgh T, CAT ..read more

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 website Cavanaugh, R. Determinants of multilevel discourse outcomes in anomia treatment for aphasia. Doctoral dissertation, University of Pittsburgh. [dissertation ..read more

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 website Millet 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 Systems (NeurIPS) 2022. [doi] Caucheteux C, King JR. Brains and algorithms partially converge in natu ..read more

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 website Gwilliams 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 ..read more

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 website Bhaya-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 Neurosci 2010; 13: 1428-33. [doi] Sjerps MJ, Fox NP, Johnson K, Chang EF. Speaker-normalized sound repre ..read more

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 Leow Diachek 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 mapping in individuals with aphasia. Hum Brain Mapp 2018; 39: 3285-307. [doi] Yen M, DeMarco AT, Wil ..read more

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; 10: 281-92. [doi] Chomsky N. Linguistics and brain science. In: Marantz A, Miyashita Y, O’Neil W, edi ..read more

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 a distributive model of language breakdown in aphasic patients and neurologically intact individuals ..read more

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 background of phenotypical variability in frontotemporal dementia. Acta Neuropathol 2011; 122: 137-53 ..read more

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 the human auditory cortex when listening to words. Neurosci Lett 1992; 146: 179-82. [doi] Price CJ, Wis ..read more