International Max Planck Research School on Neuroscience of Communication: Function, Structure and Plasticity (IMPRS NeuroCom)
Module I Language and Communication
This module focuses on the neural basis of language and communication processing in the human brain. Researchers from the field of psychology, linguistics and neurology provide students with a unique opportunity to investigate auditory cognition as well as speech and language processing from both an experimental and a theoretical perspective. We provide strong methodological support, utilising behavioural and electrophysiological methods (M/EEG) as well as functional and structural neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, fNIRS, DTI). These methods are complemented by state-of-the-art non-invasive brain stimulation approaches. Cutting-edge multivariate tools are used to provide insight into neural dynamics, activity and functional as well as structural interactions. Leading researchers of the respective fields are regularly invited to Leipzig to present and discuss their work. The teaching part of this module covers courses on hearing, psycholinguistics, the neural basis of language comprehension and production, emotional speech comprehension, linguistic topology, and understanding typological distribution.
The department of Neuropsychology’s research agenda is to identify the functional architecture of language and its neural bases in the mature and the developing brain. The approach is interdisciplinary, using different methods to analyze the functional and structural neural network of language.
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Multimodal investigations of networks for different language functions with TMS, fMRI and EEG. Adaptive plasticity and functional interactions in the healthy and lesioned language system.
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Our research focuses on first language acquisition. Particularly, we aim (1) to identify relevant milestones of typical and atypical language acquisition and (2) to characterize influencing factors of the learner and the learning environment in this process.
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My focus is on language and plasticity of the corresponding neuronal network. Research includes studies in healthy participants (and infants) and extends to investiagtions in patients with acquired brain lesion, who we treat in our Clinic for Cognitive Neurology closely affiliated to the MPI.
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Communication without words – via melody and vocal tone in speech and music – is research focus of the Otto Hahn Group. By means of modern neuroscientific methods we investigate what enables us to decode speech melody and its social contents and how musicians lend themselves and their piece artistic expression.
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Prof. Dorothee Saur, Neurologist at the University of Leipzig, is interested in studying the functional neuroanatomy of language and the mechanisms of neuronal plasticity of language recovery.
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My BioCog group studies human information processing underlying perception, attention, and action, for example, we investigate how new information is detected by our brain and how it may distract attention in children and adults.
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