I started my PhD in the Language Function and Dysfunction group in September 2019. My project is targeted at investigating the reorganization and recruitment of additional brain areas for language functions in the brain. This can especially be due to lesions, such as stroke, in language-related brain areas. The questions I aim to answer with my project are (i) under which circumstances the recruitment takes place, (ii) when exactly it happens in relation to language processing, and (iii) how it affects people’s behavior and language abilities. I will be testing stroke patients while they perform different language tasks. Measuring their brain activity with EEG allows to track the time scale of this recruitment in milliseconds and reveal the sequencing of the ongoing language processes. In addition, I will also test healthy subjects in a combined EEG-TMS study, to see how virtual lesions induced by TMS affect additional recruitment for language processes in the brain.

Co-supervised by prof. Roy Kessels, dr. Robert Oostenveld, and dr. Anil Tuladhar