Neurolinguistic avenues for early detection of neurodegenerative diseases

GARCÍA, ADOLFO M.

Chengdu

Otro; Guest Lecture Series at UESTC; 2017

Uniersity of Engineering, Science, and Techonology of Chengdu

Models of language rooted in modular, symbolic, and amodal approaches popularized the idea that linguistic systems rely on domain-specific mechanisms which prove independent from other cognitive domains. However, multiple neuroscientific and behavioral studies have challenged such a view. In this talk, I will present multidimensional evidence from our laboratory (namely, the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology and Neuroscience, at the Institute of Cognitive and Translational Neuroscience) showing that motor and perceptual mechanisms play a decisive role in early, automatic semantic processes. For example, planning manual movements while typing on a keyboard is delayed when the word to be typed is a manual action verb (e.g., scrub) compared to non-manual action verbs (e.g., jump) and cognitive verbs (e.g., think). I will also discuss several studies showing how this change in perspective gives rise to breakthroughs in the quest for early and preclinical markers of neurodegenerative diseases (especially, Parkinson?s and Huntington?s disease). To conclude, I will discuss how our theoretical conceptions of language may promote or hinder the development of translational proposals, thus impacting on the applied potential of neurolinguistics and linguistics at large.