NEURO-CONNECT Tuesday Seminar – May 20th, 12:15 – 13:15 pm

Dear all,

You are cordially invited to the next NEURO-Connect seminar, which will take place on May 20th at 12:15 at Campus Biotech.

The NEURO-Connect seminars aim at presenting different areas of the neuroscience community in Campus Biotech, ranging from cognition and emotion to neurobiology and neuroengineering, with the support of all institutions active on the site, including the UNIGE (NEUFO, CISA, FPSE), NCCR Evolving Language, EPFL (Neuro-X), HUG, CIBM and Wyss Center, and with the support of the Fondation Campus Biotech Geneva.

The next session will be hosted by NCCR. The speaker will be Prof. Gesa Hartwigsen (University of Leipzig), with the talk “Functional Plasticity in the Language Network – evidence from Neuroimaging and Neurostimulation”. Please see abstract and other details below.

Private meetings with Prof. Hartwigsen can be organized, and early career researchers (ECR, e.g., doctoral and postdoctoral) are encouraged to join the invited speaker for a networking lunch offered by the FCBG (10 spots, first-come, first-served). To indicate your wish to meet one-to-one with Prof. Hartwigsen, please write to valentina.Borghesani@unige.ch, and to register for the ECR lunch after the talk, please fill-in the following survey Lunch registration. The deadline in both cases is Wednesday May 14th. This delay is needed to be able to properly organize the schedule and to order the correct number of meals in time. We thank you for your cooperation.

Doctoral students can receive credits for their attendance, please don’t forget to have your attendance sheet signed.

For any questions on this event, you can contact the session organizer at valentina.Borghesani@unige.ch.

Looking forward to seeing you at NEURO-Connect.

The organizing team

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NEURO-CONNECT seminars
Tuesday, May 20th
12:15
Campus Biotech, H8-01-D

Prof. Gesa Hartwigsen (University of Leipzig)

Functional Plasticity in the Language Network – evidence from Neuroimaging and Neurostimulation

Efficient cognition requires flexible interactions between distributed neural networks in the human brain. These networks adapt to challenges by flexibly recruiting different regions and connections. In this talk, I will discuss how we study functional network plasticity and reorganization with combined neurostimulation and neuroimaging across the adult life span. I will argue that short-term plasticity enables flexible adaptation to challenges, via functional reorganization. My key hypothesis is that disruption of higher-level cognitive functions such as language can be compensated for by the recruitment of domain-general networks in our brain. Examples from healthy young brains illustrate how neurostimulation can be used to temporarily interfere with efficient processing, probing short-term network plasticity at the systems level. Examples from people with dyslexia help to better understand network disorders in the language domain and outline the potential of facilitatory neurostimulation for treatment. I will also discuss examples from aging brains where plasticity helps to compensate for loss of function. Finally, examples from lesioned brains after stroke provide insight into the brain’s potential for long-term reorganization and recovery of function. Collectively, these results challenge the view of a modular organization of the human brain and argue for a flexible redistribution of function via systems plasticity.

Zoom:https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85214333449?pwd=Gqyn4bGIaaQbQLeqL22s5ntA6bXM2m.1
Meeting ID: 852 1433 3449
Passcode: 725766

Disclaimer: the Neuro-Connect seminars are recorded. By participating, you authorize the possible capture and use of your image or voice in audiovisual recordings made during the event.