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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 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 website Huth 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 AG, de Heer WA, Griffiths TL, Theunissen FE, Gallant JL. Natural speech reveals the semantic maps that tile human cerebral cortex. Nature 2016; 532: 453-8. [doi] Jain S, Huth AG. Incorporating context into language encoding models for fMRI. Proceedings of the 32nd International Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems 2018, pp. 6629-38. [doi] Tang J, LeBel A, Jain S, Huth AG. Semantic reconstruction of continuous language from non-invasive brain recordings. Nat Neurosci in press. [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

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. Psychol Rev 2001; 108: 759-88. [doi] Dick F, Tierney AT, Lutti A, Josephs O, Sereno MI, Weiskopf N. In vivo functional and myeloarchitectonic mapping of human primary auditory areas. J Neurosci 2012; 32: 16095-105. [doi] Lutti A, Dick F, Sereno MI, Weiskopf N. Using high-resolution quantitative mapping of R1 as an index of cortical myelination. NeuroImage 2014; 93: 176-88. [doi] Dick FK, Lehet MI, Callaghan MF, Keller TA, Sereno MI, Holt LL. Extensive tonotopic mapping across auditory cortex is recapitulated by spectrally directed attention and systematically related to cortical myeloarchitecture. J Neurosci 2017; 37: 12187-201. [doi] Dick faculty webpage Transcript

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. [doi] Josephs KA, Duffy JR, Strand EA, Machulda MM, Senjem ML, Master AV, et al. Characterizing a neurodegenerative syndrome: primary progressive apraxia of speech. Brain 2012; 135: 1522-36. [doi] Josephs KA, Duffy JR, Strand EA, Machulda MM, Senjem ML, Lowe VJ, et al. Syndromes dominated by apraxia of speech show distinct characteristics from agrammatic PPA. Neurology 2013; 81: 337-45. [doi] Graff-Radford J, Jones DT, Strand EA, Rabinstein AA, Duffy JR, Josephs KA. The neuroanatomy of pure apraxia of speech in stroke. Brain Lang 2014; 129: 43-6. [doi] Josephs KA, Duffy JR, Clark HM, Utianski RL, Strand EA, Machulda MM, et al. A molecular pathology, neurobiology, biochemical, genetic and neuroimaging study of progressive apraxia of speech. Nat Commun 2021; 12: 3452. [doi] Josephs faculty webpage

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, Wise RJS, Warburton EA, Moore CJ, Howard D, Patterson K, Frackowiak R, Friston K. Hearing and saying. Brain 1996; 119: 919-31. [doi] Price CJ, Friston KJ. Degeneracy and cognitive anatomy. Trends Cogn Sci 2002; 6: 416-21. [doi] Crinion J, Price CJ. Right anterior superior temporal activation predicts auditory sentence comprehension following aphasic stroke. Brain 2005; 128: 2858-71. [doi] Price CJ, Seghier ML, Leff AP. Predicting language outcome and recovery after stroke: the PLORAS system. Nat Rev Neurol 2010; 6: 202-10. [doi] Price CJ. A review and synthesis of the first 20 years of PET and fMRI studies of heard speech, spoken language and reading. NeuroImage 2012; 62: 816-47. [doi] Hope TMH, Seghier ML, Leff AP, Price CJ. Predicting outcome and recovery after stroke with lesions extracted from MRI images. NeuroImage Clin 2013; 2: 424-33. [doi] Seghier ML, Price CJ. Interpreting and utilising intersubject variability in brain function. Trends Cogn Sci 2018; 22: 517-30. [doi] Price lab website Transcript

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, Turkeltaub PE, Chambers CE, Dromerick AW, Carpenter J, Berl MM, Gaillard WD. Revisiting Lenneberg’s hypotheses about early developmental plasticity: Language organization after left-hemisphere perinatal stroke. Biolinguistics 2017; 11: 407-22. [doi] Olulade OA, Seydell-Greenwald A, Chambers CE, Turkeltaub PE, Dromerick AW, Berl MM, Gaillard WD, Newport EL. The neural basis of language development: Changes in lateralization over age. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2020; 117: 23477-83. [doi] Elissa Newport’s website