Speech pathology

We study the language processing in various brain pathologies. Primarily we are interested in the disorders in already formed language resulting from focal brain damage - aphasia. In patients with aphasia, we study psycholinguistics and neural mechanisms of speech disruption, and language and cognitive mechanisms connection: we examine the patients with the tests developed by the Lab’s members and follow neural reorganization using structural and functional neuroimaging methods. We also work with brain tumor patients: in these cases, the lesions grow slowly which enables productive neural speech reorganization. We check how this reorganization developed and follow new speech regions and pathways in order to prevent their surgical removal during the tumor resection. Our recent topics of interest - language reorganization in epilepsy and kids with impairments in speech development.

Current projects

Language test for speech mapping in neurosurgery
Preoperative language mapping
Role of white matter tracts in language processing: diffusion-tensor imaging data of individuals with neurogenic language disorders
Language impairments and their neuroanatomical correlates in patients after brain tumor resection
Language comprehension and production in patients with epilepsy
Speech coherence in schizophrenia
Neural mechanisms of lexical selection
Mechanisms of lexical selection: The relative contributions of linguistic and executive control deficits

Applied research

Outlining linguistic deficits in different types of aphasia: development and application of the Russian Aphasia Test
The archive of Alexander Luria
Aphasia awareness
Aphasia Rapid Test and Aphasia Bedside Check for language deficit detection in acute stroke
Multilingual spatial test
APACS-Ru – Russian version of APACS (Assessment of Pragmatic Abilities and Cognitive Substrates)
Token Test – a multilingual app for aphasia diagnostics on a tablet

Completed projects

Neural foundations of grammar
Linguistic analysis from the point of view of aphasic patients
Neural basis for discourse production: narrative violations in patients with brain leisons
Neuroplasticity of language: reorganization of neuronal activity in brain damage
What memory does language need
Constraint-Induced Aphasia Therapy combined with tDCS
The effects of verb argument structure on verb processing complexity in aphasia