Alina Minnigulova

HSE University hosted the 13th Summer Neurolinguistics School, organised by the Centre for Language and Brain with support from the HSE Faculty of Humanities. The programme focused on collaboration among neurolinguists, neurosurgeons, and neurophysiologists in the operating room, standardisation of linguistic paradigms, and practical approaches to preserving patients’ language function.

An international team of scientists, including researchers from the HSE Centre for Language and Brain, has for the first time studied the connectivity between the brain's sensorimotor and cognitive control networks in children with autism. Using fMRI data, the researchers found that connections within the cognitive control network (responsible for attention and inhibitory control) are weakened, while connections between this network and the sensorimotor network (responsible for movement and sensory processing) are, by contrast, excessively strong. These features manifest as difficulties in social interaction and behavioural regulation in children. The study has been published in Brain Imaging and Behavior.

For the first time, an international team of researchers—including scientists from the HSE Centre for Language and Brain—combined magnetoencephalography and morphometric analysis in a single experiment to study children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The study found that children with autism have more difficulty filtering and processing sounds, particularly in the brain region typically responsible for language comprehension. The study has been published in Cerebral Cortex.

Scientists have discovered significant structural differences in the brain's pathways, tracts, and thalamus between children with autism and their neurotypical peers, despite finding no functional differences. The most significant alterations were found in the pathways connecting the thalamus—the brain's sensory information processing centre—to the temporal lobe. Moreover, the severity of these alterations positively correlated with the intensity of the child's autistic traits. The study findings have been published in Behavioural Brain Research.

Alina Minnigulova and Maria Khudyakova at the HSE Centre for Language and Brain have presented the latest research findings on the linguistic and neural mechanisms of language impairments and their progression in patients following neurosurgery. The scientists shared insights gained from over five years of research on the dynamics of language impairment and recovery.