Greg Hickok, cognitive sciences professor and founding director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, has received a $257,960 grant from the National Institutes of Health to further his research on the brain’s role in speech and how abnormalities can inhibit this process.  The funding adds to the $9.3 million he has already received for research in this area, and allows him to add postdoctoral researcher Kayoko Okada, a 2005 graduate of the UCI cognitive sciences doctoral program and specialist in fMRI and behavioral research, to his team. Using state-of-the-art methods, the researchers are conducting a large scale mapping study of brain areas involved in language processing. They’re also mapping areas of the brain that, when damaged, produce language disorders. The research is being coordinated through a multi-university consortium Hickok created to quicken the pace and sharing of this type of work, the result of which may lead to advancements in therapies for persons who have suffered brain damage or exhibit neural abnormalities. 

The supplementary NIH funding for Okada’s postdoctoral work began in August and will run through November 2013.

Learn more about Hickok’s prior conduction aphasia research here.