Brenda Rapp - US grants

Description: (amended from applicant's abstract) The goal of this project is to advance our understanding of the cognitive and brain mechanisms that underlie written language. The proposed research addresses three sets of issues regarding the basic architecture of the spelling system and one regarding the nature of our knowledge of word spellings. Issues of fundamental architecture are: (1) do writers need to access the spoken form of a word in order to retrieve its spelling? (2) are the same word and letter-shape representations used in spelling and reading? (3) what is the nature of the interaction between specific cognitive components of the spelling system? The question concerning our knowledge of word spellings is: (4) what is the internal structure of graphemic representations? Three methodologies are proposed: (a) detailed case studies of individuals who have suffered neurological damage, (b) the study of unimpaired normal individuals and (c) analysis of the performance of individuals in whom temporary, reversible deficits are created by stimulation of the cortex via electrodes (implanted for clinical purposes) resting on the brain's surface. The proposed studies should generate a basis for the development of more detailed theories of how the human mind/brain accomplishes the task of written language production.

This Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training (IGERT) award supports the establishment of a multidisciplinary graduate training program of education and research in a new paradigm of graduate education: Problem-Centered training, delimited not by the boundaries of an academic discipline, but by the demands of solving a problem. Students are trained in a broad range of research methods derived from a diverse set of traditional disciplines. The general problem targeted by this IGERT program is: "How does the brain achieve its function?" The program focuses on one particularly important cognitive function: language. Basic research on language has long-term implications for diagnosis and treatment of language-related neurological and learning disorders, for literacy and language education, and for digital language technologies. The computational framework of cognitive science allows the problem to be formulated more precisely: What are the representational structures, processing algorithms, and learning algorithms underlying our linguistic abilities? How are these representations and algorithms realized in the brain? Studying with internationally recognized leaders at Johns Hopkins, IGERT trainees acquire both theoretical and empirical sophistication through a uniquely multidisciplinary range of research methods: (i) computational and mathematical modeling of language processing and learning, including symbolic methods and neural networks, in a range of linguistic formalisms; (ii) psychological experimentation on adult and infant language processing and learning; (iii) neuroimaging of brain activity during language processing; (iv) grammatical analysis of the language of adults, children, and second-language learners; (v) neuropsychology of language deficits from acquired and developmental neurological damage; and (vi) computational methods of automatic speech and language processing.

IGERT is an NSF-wide program intended to facilitate the establishment of innovative, research-based graduate programs that will train a diverse group of scientists and engineers to be well-prepared to take advantage of a broad spectrum of career options. IGERT provides doctoral institutions with an opportunity to develop new, well-focussed multidisciplinary graduate programs that transcend organizational boundaries and unite faculty from several departments or institutions to establish a highly interactive, collaborative environment for both training and research. In this second year of the program, awards are being made to twenty-one institutions for programs that collectively span all areas of science and engineering supported by NSF. This specific award is supported by funds from the Directorates for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences, for Biological Sciences, for Computer and Information Science and Engineering, and for Education and Human Resources.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Understanding how to promote the recovery of written language production skills subsequent to neural injury is important not only because literacy plays a central role in the personal and economic success of their individual, but also because research indicates that written language deficits may be amenable to treatment even when spoken language deficits are not. Thus, the successful treatment of acquired dysgraphia may provide a means of communication for individuals who are otherwise unable to communicate. For these reasons it is important to understand the neural mechanisms that support recovery of written language functions and how successful treatment might be promoted. This study is designed to identify the neural substrates of written language production in the intact brain and investigate the neural mechanisms that support learning and recovery of written language in the injured brain. We will use the non-invasive brain-imaging technique of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with the following aims. In the intact brain we will identify: (a) the brain areas that subserve written language production and (b) the neural mechanisms that support the learning of new spellings. In the injured brain we will examine: (c) the neural changes that take place in individuals who have suffered neural injury affecting their spelling abilities and (d) the neural changes that occur in the course of the recovery of spelling abilities in response to behavioral treatment. The combined investigation of written language production and learning in both the intact and damaged brain provides a powerful convergent methodology for elucidating the neural mechanisms that support recovery of function. Such an investigation requires expertise across a number of domains and to this end, the proposed study brings together a multi-disciplinary team with specializations in: the cognitive and neuropsychological aspects of spelling and acquired dysgraphia, the neurological aspects of stroke and brain injury, the neuroimaging of language, learning and memory, and the statistical methods that are required for longitudinal treatment studies. This research will provide important information regarding the neural mechanisms that support effective treatment of written language impairments and will further our understanding of the cognitive neuroscience of literacy specifically, and of neural plasticity more generally.