“Interesting brains”: Plasticity and redundancy in the human brain

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Only published papers are included; for preprints, see Papers.
Last Updated: May 2024

The functional architecture of atypical brains

You can read more about this project and about our discoveries on the Interesting Brains project page.

These papers investigate the functional architecture in individuals with atypical brains, such as individuals with early strokes, large cysts, or hydrocephalus. Here are the papers that have come out of this project so far.

All Publications
Intact reading ability in spite of a spatially distributed visual word form ‘area’ in an individual born without the left superior temporal lobe

Li, J., Fedorenko, E. & Saygin, Z. 2022. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 39(5-8), 249-275. DOI: 10.1080/02643294.2023.2164923. PMID: 36653302. PMC10213128.
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Frontal language areas do not emerge in the absence of temporal language areas: A case study of an individual born without a left temporal lobe

Tuckute, G., Paunov, A., Kean, H., Small, H., Mineroff, Z., Blank, I., & Fedorenko, E. 2021. Neuropsychologia, 169, 108184. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108184. PMID: 35183561. 
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Preserved functional organization of human auditory cortex in individuals missing one temporal lobe from infancy

Regev, T. I.*, Lipkin, B.*, Boebinger, D. L., Paunov, A. M., Kean, H., Norman-Haignere, S. V., & Fedorenko, E. In press. iScience.
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Language processing in congenitally blind individuals

This is a paper from an early collaboration with Marina Bedny and Rebecca Saxe’s group, which shows that congenitally blind individuals have typical-like language areas in the left frontal and temporal cortex, but additionally have a region in the occipital cortex that also supports language comprehension.

All Publications
Language processing in the occipital cortex of congenitally blind adults

Bedny, M., Pascual-Leone, A., Dodell-Feder, D., Fedorenko, E. & Saxe, R. 2011. PNAS, 108(11), 4429-4434. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1014818108. PMID: 21368161. PMC3060248. 
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