Cognition and Brain Plasticity is an interdisciplinary Unit devoted to studying the nervous system’s structural and functional reorganization capacity, and its role in development, neurological injuries, learning, neurorehabilitation and/or interventional processes.
We combine neuroimaging techniques with specific experimental paradigms in order to understand the mechanisms of plastic changes in the brain. This multidisciplinary goal can be seen in the research topics of the different groups in the unit, focusing on language learning and its dysfunctions, the dynamics of memory formation and reward processing, and motivation. The Unit’s groups consist of members with different trainings and backgrounds working in tandem to further their mutual lines of research. The team develops new analysis methods for basic research that have direct implications for clinical applications.
We believe that understanding the mechanisms and limits of neuroplasticity in adults’ and children’s cognitive functions through basic research will lead to improvements in intervention programs that ameliorate the sequelae induced by neurological diseases and improve cognitive capacities in healthy individuals.
Webpage financed with ERC funding
Škorić, A.M., Pourquié, M., Norvik, M., Kraljević, J.K., Simonsen, H.G., Martínez-Ferreiro, S., Fyndanis, V., Munarriz-Ibarrola, A., Soroli, E., Pak-Hin Kong, A, Anjum, J., Niharika, M.K., Sze, W.P., Salmons, I., Gavarró, A., Rofes, A., Grima, R., Python, G., Alyahya, R.S.W., Kambanaros, M., Garraffa, M., Selvi-Balo, S., Biedermann, B., Renvall, K., Taiebine, M., Biran, M., Areej, A., Scheffer, S.D., Ezzedine, N., Hallowell, B., Keulen, S., Goral, M., Peñaloza, C., Arslan, S. (2026). Setting a research agenda for the assessment and treatment of aphasia in minority languages Cortex. 198:13-26
Jacobs, B., Olivé, G., Rico-Pons, I., Rodríguez-Fornells, A., Peñaloza, C. (2026). Discourse abilities in post-stroke aphasia: A multi-level analysis of macro and micro- structural properties and their white matter neural correlates Cortex. 195:58-80
