The Language Neuroscience Podcast

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 website

Vanderauwera 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 children with dyslexia before the onset of reading instruction. Cortex 2019; 121: 399–413. [doi]

Phan TV, Sima D, Smeets D, Ghesquière P, Wouters J, Vandermosten M. Structural brain dynamics across reading development: A longitudinal MRI study from kindergarten to grade 5. Hum Brain Mapp 2021; 42: 4497-509. [doi]

Clercq PD, Gonsalves AR, Gerrits R, Vandermosten M. Individualized functional localization of the language and multiple demand network in chronic post-stroke aphasia. bioRxiv 2024; 2024.01.12.575350. [doi]

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, CATALISE‐2 consortium. Phase 2 of CATALISE: a multinational and multidisciplinary Delphi consensus study of problems with language development: Terminology. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2017;58:1068-80. [doi]

Wilson AC, Bishop DVM. Resounding failure to replicate links between developmental language disorder and cerebral lateralisation. PeerJ. 2018;6:e4217. [doi]

Bishop D. Rein in the four horsemen of irreproducibility. Nature. 2019;568:435. [doi]

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]

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 natural language processing. Commun Biol. 2022;5:134. [doi]

Caucheteux C, Gramfort A, King JR. Evidence of a predictive coding hierarchy in the human brain listening to speech. Nat Hum Behav. 2023;7:430-41. [doi]

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]

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 website

Li 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 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 representations in the human auditory cortex. Nat Commun 2019; 10: 2465. [doi]

Leonard MK, Baud MO, Sjerps MJ, Chang EF. Perceptual restoration of masked speech in human cortex. Nat Commun 2016; 7: 13619. [doi]

Hamilton LS, Edwards E, Chang EF. A spatial map of onset and sustained responses to speech in the human superior temporal gyrus. Curr Biol 2018; 28: 1860-71. [doi]

Oganian Y, Chang EF. A speech envelope landmark for syllable encoding in human superior temporal gyrus. Sci Adv 2019; 5: eaay6279. [doi]

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, Wilson SM. Adaptive paradigms for mapping phonological regions in individual participants. NeuroImage 2019; 189: 368-79. [doi]

Wilson SM, Lam D, Babiak M, Perry D, Shih T, Hess CP, Berger MS, Chang EF. Transient aphasias after left hemisphere resective surgery. J Neurosurg 2015; 123: 581-93. [doi]

McCarron A, Chavez A, Babiak MC, Berger MS, Chang EF, Wilson SM. Connected speech in transient aphasias after left hemisphere resective surgery. Aphasiology 2017; 31: 1266-81. [doi]

Penfield W, Roberts L. Speech and Brain-Mechanisms. Princeton University Press; 1959. [book]

Long Monday by John Prine

Clay Pigeons by John Prine

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, editors. Image, language, brain: Papers from the first mind articulation project symposium. MIT Press; 2000. p. 13-28. [pdf]

Musso M, Moro A, Glauche V, Rijntjes M, Reichenbach J, Büchel C, Weiller C. Broca’s area and the language instinct. Nat Neurosci 2003; 6: 774-81. [doi]

Chomsky N. Language and mind. Cambridge University Press; 2006. [doi]

Friederici AD, Chomsky N, Berwick RC, Moro A, Bolhuis JJ. Language, mind and brain. Nat Hum Behav 2017; 1: 713-22. [doi]

Chomsky N. Linguistics then and now: Some personal reflections. Annu Rev Linguist 2021; 7: 1-11. [doi]

Chomsky website