Thank you for visiting Zhang Lab @
Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences
Mission Statement
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| Understanding and Modeling the Brain |
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The acquisition of language skills is a quintessential human characteristic reflecting how the brain reinvents itself in endless possibilities through symbolic representations. Despite maturational and age constraints, the brain possesses amazingly versatile computational power to adapt quickly and rewire itself in response to internal changes, structural insult, external stimulation, and learning experience.
The overall goal of research in the Zhang Lab is to characterize brain plasticity across the life span and define more clearly what the neural signature markers are for normal and pathological development of speech and language. An integrative approach is pursued: (a) "top-down" brain imaging in high-density electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG), integrated with Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and functional MRI (fMRI), which quantifies regional temporal and spatial details and cross-region interactions for different levels of information processing and performance, and (b) "bottom-up" construction by investigating specific aspects of brain functions/dysfunctions in neural coding and computational modeling, which allows a detailed examination of the language input and learning mechanisms that make the sonic and optical experiences uniquely human in service of communicative functions.
Keywords: Cognitive Neuroscience; Auditory Processing; Brain Plasticity; Bilingualism; Speech and Language Disorders; Autism
Commitment to teaching, research and community services: Giving to SLHS
Lab updates
January 15, 2012: Paper on Developmental Dyslexia accepted for publication at Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.
January 17, 2012: Meghan Simpson (lab coordinator), Pengyue (Kevin) Mao, Kaylee Wiener, and Monica Yue joined lab. Samantha Yang will be doing an ERP study on bilingualism with Drs. Rao and Zhang in Spring 2012.
January 18, 2012: Two submissions accepted for presentation at 2012 Cognitive Neuroscience Meeting in Chicago. One on speech perception in autistic children; the other on neural correlates of phonetic training of lexical tones with Yue Wang's group at Simon Frasier. Three more papers submitted to Human Brain Mapping 2012 conference.
