Research Project:
Functional Neural Organization for Language
| |
|
| |
fMRI image of neural activity
|
The study of signed languages provides a unique tool for investigating the functional neural organization of language in the human brain. We use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) to address the following questions:
- Is the deaf, signing brain different from the hearing, speaking brain?
- How does the brain recognize the difference between sign language and gesture?
- Are there differences in brain anatomy between signers and speakers?
- How is sign perception different from action perception (is there a "mirror system" for sign recognition)?
- How is language about space and motion processed by the brain?
- Does acquiring a signed language impact the neural organization for non-linguistic visual processing?
- What is the nature of the bimodal bilingual brain?
Funding:
This research is supported by the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (R01 DC006708) and by the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development (R01 HD13249; R01 HD047736).
Selected Publications:
- Emmorey, K., & McCullough, S. (in press). The bimodal brain: Effects of sign language experience. Brain and Language.
read
- Emmorey, K., Mehta, S., & Grabowski, T.J. (2007). The neural
correlates of sign versus word production. NeuroImage, 36, 202-208.
- Emmorey, K. (2006). The signer as an embodied mirror neuron system: Neural mechanisms underlying sign language and action. In M. A. Arbib (Ed). Action to language via the mirror neuron system, pp. 103-135, Cambridge University Press. read
- Emmorey, K., Grabowski, TJ., McCullough, S., Ponto, L., Hichwa, R., & Damasio, H. (2005). The neural correlates of spatial language in English and American Sign Language: A PET study with hearing bilinguals. NeuroImage, 24, 832-840. read
- McCullough, S., Emmorey, K., & Sereno, M. I. (2005). Neural organization for recognition of grammatical and emotional facial expressions in deaf ASL signers and hearing nonsigners. Cognitive Brain Research, 22, 193-203. read
- Emmorey, K., Grabowski, T., McCullough, S., Damasio, H, Ponto, L, Hichwa, R., & Bellugi, U. (2004). Motor-iconicity of sign language does not alter the neural systems underlying tool and action naming. Brain and Language, 89(1), 27-37. read
- Emmorey, K., Allen, J. S., Bruss, J., Schenker, N., & Damasio, H. (2003). A morphometric analysis of auditory brain regions in congenitally deaf adults. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100(17), 10049-10054. read
|
|
 |
