This event has now finished.
  • Date and time: Friday 20 October 2023, 1pm to 2pm
  • Location: Dianna Bowles Lecture Theatre, B/K/018, Biology Building, Campus West, University of York (Map)
  • Audience: Open to alumni, staff, students (postgraduate researchers, taught postgraduates, undergraduates)
  • Admission: Free admission, booking not required

Event details

Abstract

This talk will start with a summary of the functional anatomy of speech processing, reading and object naming in the neurotypical brain; including illustrations of the brain regions that are activated during auditory speech processing, motor control of speech output and sensory to motor mapping that is independent of stimulus and response.  The second part of the talk will discuss the loss and recovery of function after damage to language regions; and consider why recovery can be very quick after damage to left subcortical regions and Broca’s area but much more challenging after damage to  left posterior temporal regions.   Finally,  I will introduce a new method, that uses knowledge of the language system to generate accurate, personalized, explainable predictions for language recovery after stroke; with discussion of the directions we need to take to ensure clinically useful prognoses for aphasic stroke survivors in the future.

About the speaker

Professor Cathy Price

Cathy Price is a professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, Director of the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (2015) and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2014). She has spent the last 30 years studying the brain regions that allow us to speak and read. Her goal is to predict and explain language outcome and recovery after brain damage. She recruits stroke survivors from all over the UK, inviting them to London for brain imaging and speech and language assessments; and using the results to discover how the brain changes over the course of recovery. Strokes can damage many different brain regions and the effect of stroke and speed of recovery both depend on which brain regions have been damaged. By studying hundreds of patients, the most consistent effects of stroke can be understood and used to predict how other patients, with similar brain damage, will recover over time.