Posts

SNL 2023: Exploring Language Neuroscience

Abigail, Sarah and Marion participated in SNL 2023 in Marseille! SNL2023 was a blast! Three days filled with amazing discussions led by renowned experts in various fields of language neuroscience. Opening Presentation by Jean-Rémi King The grand event commenced with a captivating presentation by Jean-Rémi King, where the audience was introduced to cutting-edge computational projects created by Meta. He presented their recent work entitled “The Unreasonable Effectiveness of AI in Neurosciences” (a reference to physicist Wigner’s 1960 work), where researchers trained artificial intelligence (AI) to decode MEG signals in response to images.

November 7, 2023 Read

Scientifica: Switzerland's Premier Science Festival

Since 2011, Switzerland has been home to Scientifica, the country’s largest science festival, co-hosted by ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich. Held every two years with a unique theme for each edition, Scientifica has consistently drawn over 20,000 visitors. This event provides an exceptional platform for researchers to engage the public through a wide array of activities, including exhibitions and workshops. Highlights from Scientifica23 In the most recent Scientifica event, Scientifica23, the NoCE lab was one of the booths representing the NCCR Evolving Language project.

September 13, 2023 Read

Bonjour! I'm Marion

Bonjour, I’m Marion. I studied in Liège in Belgium. I have a Bachelor’s degree in general psychology and a Master’s degree in cognitive neuroscience. During my PhD, I studied the interaction between language and working memory using both a behavioral and a neuroimaging approach. Then, after all these years in Liège, I discovered new horizons after I was given the opportunity to be a research assistant in Fribourg, Switzerland, where I continued studying the interactions between working memory and language.

September 30, 2022 Read

Hi! I'm Abigail

I’m a PhD student in neuroscience (LNDS) researching cross-linguistic influence on semantic knowledge in multilingualism. During my bachelor’s in neuroscience (University of Cincinnati) I investigated sound symbolism and cognition-emotion interactions in reading. I completed my master’s degree in neuro-cognitive psychology in Munich, Germany (LMU) where I examined language and cognitive performance alongside PET imaging in patients with primary progressive aphasia. After my master’s degree, I moved to San Francisco, California (UCSF) to work as a neuroimaging data assistant and to gain knowledge of multimodal imaging techniques for the visualization of neuroanatomical changes related to language dysfunction.

September 22, 2022 Read

Above & beyond language

[more coming soon] Language & task demands How does language contribute to the human ability to quickly adapt to novel tasks demands? Is it thanks to higher order semantic representations, grounded in sensorimotor information, that bypass idiosyncratic lower-level aspects? Performing task-appropriate behaviors requires (at a minimum) three stages: linguistic processing, semantic understanding, and sensorimotor implementation of the instructions received. Thus, it should be possible to track the corresponding spatiotemporal shift in representational content across cortical areas: from low level linguistic features to high-level semantics and sensorimotor control signals.

December 21, 2021 Read

Concepts across languages & cultures

Conceptual spaces and semantic typology [more coming soon]

December 20, 2021 Read

Concepts & words across people

Ontogeny and phylogeny of individual differences [more coming soon]

December 19, 2021 Read

Learning words & concepts

Our exploration of the dynamics between language and semantic, labels and concepts, includes the study of how the association between words and their meaning is built, as well as how developmet (and issues during development) affects that association. Learning novel concepts Vigano, S., Borghesani, V., & Piazza, M. (2021) Symbolic categorization of novel multisensory stimuli in the human brain. NeuroImage, p.118016. We used fMRI to study how the brain categorizes multisensory objects using words.

December 18, 2021 Read

Losing words & concepts

We investigate which neural substrate are critical for language and semantic processing. So far we have focused on: the role played by the left and right anterior temporal lobe (ATL) in, respectively, verbal and nonverbal semantic (Borghesani et al., Cortex, 2019; Borghesani et al., NeuroImage:Clinical, 2020; Borghesani et al., Aphasiology, 2019) how ATL damage can be (partially) compensated by the over recruitment of spared dorsal and posterior areas (Borghesani et al.

December 17, 2021 Read

Representing words & concepts

We study the neuro-cognitive correlates of semantic knowledge (Borghesani & Piazza, Neuropsychologia, 2017). So far, we have seen how different concept features are encoded in distributed yet specialized cortical representations, with crucial topographical dissociations describing a posterior-to-anterior gradient from perceptual to conceptual features (Borghesani et al., Neuroimage, 2016) are automatically and rapidly retrieved when presented with symbolic information (Borghesani et al., JoCN, 2018) according to the task the subject is performing (Borghesani et al.

December 16, 2021 Read

Ciao! I am Valentina

After a bachelor’s degree in experimental psychology (UNIBO), a master’s in neuropsychology (UNITN), and a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience (UPMC), I perfected my unique combination of skills and knowledge with postdoctoral work in both clinical neuroscience (UCSF) and computational neuroscience (UdeM) neuroscience. My research interest, a multidimensional investigation of the neuro-cognitive interplay of semantic knowledge and language, requires leveraging a wide array of techniques across different disciplines including neuropsychology, cognitive neuroimaging, and computer science.

December 15, 2021 Read