Overview

4ward North PhD Fellowship: Neural compensatory mechanisms that underpin retention and recovery of language function post-stroke.

Post-stroke aphasia is of clinical importance because stroke is highly prevalent, with an estimated 25.7 million occurring worldwide in 2013, and one-third of stroke patients develop aphasia and consequent high levels of disability in their professional and everyday lives.

My PhD will utilise cutting-edge clinical and cognitive neuroscience to investigate the neural compensatory mechanisms, namely changes in patterns of neural activity and connectivity across regions, that help to retain and recover language function at different time-points post-stroke.

A better understanding of such mechanisms might provide patient-specific therapeutic targets in future trials of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).

Key collaborators

• Professor Matthew Lambon Ralph, University of Manchester
• Professor Timothy Griffiths, Newcastle University

Specialty interest/techniques

• Cognitive neuroscience, cognitive neurology, post-stroke aphasia, auditory cognition
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), functional MRI, Diffusion Tensor MRI (DTI), Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), neuropsychology, auditory psychophysics

Career aspirations

This PhD will provide me with a unique opportunity to develop my clinical and cognitive neuroscience knowledge and techniques.

Subsequently I hope to continue this research as a clinician-scientist while training in academic neurology.

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