CNS 2023: Marlene Behrmann, PhD, "At Least a Hundred Years of Hemispheric Lateralization Studies..."

Marlene Behrmann, PhD, (University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine) gives a talk as part of the CNS at 30: Perspectives on the Roots, Present, and Future of Cognitive Neuroscience special session at CNS 2023 in San Francisco.

Abstract: In February 2023, a Pubmed search with the term ‘hemispheric specialization’ yielded 21,748 papers, all of which seek to identify and understand which particular functions are the purview of the right versus left hemisphere. Cognitive neuroscience as a discipline continues to pursue answers to this question. In this talk, I will describe the ongoing contribution of cognitive neuroscience approaches to advancing our understanding of cortical organization. I will take as my focus the neural mechanisms that subserve complex visual pattern recognition, and will draw on evidence from studies of the visual system in health and disease (normal adults and children, individuals with focal neuropsychological deficits, and individuals with hemispherectomy or lobectomy) adopting multiple methodologies (psychophysics, neuroimaging, stereoencephalography). I will propose that visual recognition emerges from the interactive engagement of a network of regions, which is distributed within and across both hemispheres, and which evince graded functional specialization. Data will be used to test predictions such as specific collaborative and competitive synergies of hemispheric bias that play out over the course of development, the nature of representations across the two hemispheres and the extent to which a single hemisphere, either left or right, might suffice for recognition. Last, I will lay out open questions which will, undoubtedly, occupy the field well into the future.

Видео CNS 2023: Marlene Behrmann, PhD, "At Least a Hundred Years of Hemispheric Lateralization Studies..." канала Cognitive Neuroscience Society