Olga Dragoy

On November 4-6, as part of Inventing the Future International Symposium hosted by the National Centre RUSSIA, the HSE Centre for Language and Brain facilitated a discussion titled 'Evolution of the Brain: How Does the World Change Us?' Researchers from the country's leading universities, along with health professionals and neuroscience popularisers, discussed specific aspects of human brain function.

A team of scientists, including researchers from the HSE Centre for Language and Brain, examined specific aspects of auditory perception in children with autism. The scientists observed atypical alpha rhythm activity both during sound perception and at rest. This suggests that these children experience abnormalities in the early stages of sound processing in the brain's auditory cortex. Over time, these abnormalities can result in language difficulties. The study findings have been published in Brain Structure and Function.

The Minister of Higher Education of Malaysia, Zambri Abdul Kadir, and members of the Malaysian delegation met with researchers from HSE University — St. Petersburg on October 10, 2024, at the exhibition of scientific projects.

HSE University hosted an international mini-conference titled 'Search for new ways to develop Russian-Italian cooperation in the field of Biomedicine,' attended by scientists from both countries and HSE Rector Nikita Anisimov.

A student of the HSE Faculty of Computer Science, Andrey Kuznetsov, has become the winner of the 2024 Data Fusion Contest. He took first place in solving geoanalytics tasks, and also won the special ‘Companion’ category. The competition took place as part of the 2024 Data Fusion conference on big data and AI technologies. Researchers from HSE University presented the results of their work and demonstrated applied developments at the conference.

The HSE Centre for Language and Brain and the Laboratory of Experimental Linguistics at Adyghe State University (ASU) have launched the first Digital Ethnolook International Contest in the Brain Art / ScienceArt / EtnoArt format. Submissions are accepted until May 25, 2024.

HSE scientists have developed a software tool for assessing the presence and degree of dyslexia in school students based on their gender, age, school grade, and eye-tracking data. The application is expected to be introduced into clinical practice in 2024. The underlying studies were conducted by specialists in machine learning and neurolinguistics at the HSE AI Research Centre.

Applications for the fourth HSE University Competition of the Best Russian-language Scientific and Popular Science Papers will be accepted from February 1 to March 15. The authors that receive the highest scores from the expert jury will be awarded on June 6—Russian Language Day. The main goal of the competition is to support and promote Russian language as a language of science, as well as to popularise works affiliated with HSE University among the global Russian-speaking audience.

HSE, the Pirogov National Medical and Surgical Centre, and the Centre for Speech Pathology and Neurorehabilitation of the Moscow Healthcare Department have signed an agreement on cooperation and the creation of a ‘neuro-consortium’ under the name ‘Transfer of Neurocognitive Technologies’. The new body will boost the development and implementation of advanced solutions in neurotechnology aimed at maintaining and improving people's health. The agreement was signed for five years, and the consortium is open to new participants.

In the spring of 2023, the fifth strategic project of the Priority 2030 programme, 'Human Brain Resilience: Neurocognitive Technologies for Adaptation, Learning, Development and Rehabilitation in a Changing Environment,' was launched at HSE University. The strategic project brings together researchers from all campuses of HSE University. In her interview with the HSE News Service, Olga Dragoy, head of the strategic project and Director of the HSE Centre for Language and Brain, shares an overview of the advanced technologies neuroscientists are creating today, the underlying inspiration driving these efforts, and the operational dynamics of interdisciplinary applied projects.

This year, more than 100 students from Russia and abroad took part in the 10^th summer neurolinguistic school, ‘Eye-tracking in the Lab and Beyond’. The school is held annually by the HSE Center for Language and Brain. Leading experts spoke about advanced developments and research in the field of video-oculography.

New methods of brain mapping will make it easier to identify the cortex areas responsible for speech functions and to perform operations on the brain, as well as reduce the likelihood of damage to important areas. In addition, this will allow for more frequent use of non-invasive methods for restoring speech and other functions lost due to injuries and illnesses.

HSE News Service spoke to Director of the Institute of Cognitive Neurosciences, Head of the Centre for Cognition and Decision Making at HSE University, Anna Shestakova about the achievements and goals of the new HSE University’s strategic project ‘Human Brain Resilience: Neurocognitive Technologies for Adaptation, Learning, Development, and Rehabilitation in a Changing Environment’.

Members of the Language Center for Language and Brain together with colleagues from the Laboratory of Experimental Linguistics at the Adyghe State University conducted a field expedition in the aul Dzhambechiy, the Republic of Adygea.

Researchers from HSE University’s Centre for Language and Brain, together with employees of Adyghe State University’s Laboratory of Experimental Linguistics, are conducting an expedition that is unprecedented in Russia: psycholinguistic field research into the Adyghe language and Russian-Adyghe bilingualism in a village in the Republic of Adygea.

Employees of the Center for Language and Brain presented their studies at the conference "Cognitive Science in Moscow: New Research". Director of the Center Olga Dragoy spoke at the round table "Undoubted Achievements of Cognitive Science in the 21st Century", where she talked about the successes of neuroscience.

Adyghe State University has opened a laboratory of experimental linguistics. Olga Dragoy, Chief Research Fellow at the Center for Language and Brain, will be the laboratory’s academic supervisor and consultant. The laboratory will study the psycho- and neuro-linguistic mechanisms of functioning of the national languages of Russia, both on-site and during scientific expeditions.

At the end of 2022, the results of the Project Competition in Basic Science Research for Intercampus Departments were announced. This was the inaugural competition, and focused on encouraging new research teams at HSE University and developing intercampus cooperation in the field of fundamental research. Here, HSE News Services looks at four winning projects.

HSE University has announced the winners of the Project Competition in Basic Science Research for Intercampus Departments. The competition, which the university is organising for the first time, will provide funding to 10 research teams working on five topics. Four of the winning projects will be implemented by new research departments formed as a result of the competition.

The Human Capital Interdisciplinary Research Centre (HCIRC) is a world-class research centre comprising a consortium of HSE University, RANEPA, MGIMO University, and the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). Its work was highly rated by the RAS in 2021. Lilia Ovcharova, HSE University Vice Rector and initiator of the centre’s creation, talked to the HSE News Service about integration in international studies on active ageing, creating a database on development trends in human potential, studying the effects of digitalisation, and the centre’s priority activities for the future.

The meeting was held in person for the first time in over two years. It was attended by Sergey Kravtsov, Russian Minister of Education, and Dmitry Smyslov, Vice President of VK. The Council discussed HSE University’s breakthrough projects in engineering and artificial intelligence and elected new distinguished and tenured professors.

A new paper of the Center for Language and Brain, in collaboration with the National Medical and Surgical Center Named After N. I. Pirogov, is now published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

Researchers from the HSE University Centre for Language and Brain have created and standardized a new test battery for diagnosing language disorders in people with brain damage. The test is the first standardized assessment tool in Russia in the field. The paper entitled ‘The Russian Aphasia Test: The first comprehensive, quantitative, standardized, and computerized aphasia language battery in Russian’ has just beenpublished in the PLOS ONE journal.

In September-October 2021, a research group from the Center for Language and Brain (Olga Parshina, Olga Dragoy, Nina Zdorova and Anastasia Kromina) collected reading data in children in the capital of the Republic of Adygea, Maykop.

The Centre for Language and Brain in Nizhny Novgorod started operations in September 2020. Today, it is comprised of a team of linguists - teachers and students - who are researching the relations between speech and parts of the brain. The Director of the Centre, Natalya E. Gronskaya, spoke to the HSE Look about how the neuro-linguistic laboratory appeared in Nizhny Novgorod, as well as current tasks and prospects the Centre can offer the students and the region.

How can a small Russian research group become a world-famous scientific centre in less than a decade? A special edition of the Frontiers in Psychologyjournal devoted to increasing public awareness of neuroscience features an article about the HSE University Center for Language and Brain, including the successes and challenges of its early years.

Olga Dragoy, Chief Researcher and Director of the HSE Center for Language and Brain, spoke in a popular way about how linguists can help in clinical practice.

Congratulations to Olga Viktorovna on successfully defending her doctoral dissertation!

Congratulations to Svetlana on successfully defending her PhD dissertation!

Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain presented reports at the Twelfth Meeting of the Society for the Neurobiology of Language, a community of leading researchers in the study of the neurobiological basis of language.

In 2020, the International Conference on Cognitive Sciences was held for the first time within the framework of the 1st National Congress on Cognitive Research, Artificial Intelligence and Neuroinformatics. The members of the HSE Center for Language and Brain presented reports at this conference.

The Russian Science Foundation has announced the winners of four 2020 competitions. Some of the winners are from HSE University. They have received grants of 12 to 24 million roubles, for a term of two to four years.

The portal “My Planet” published a popular science article by the director of the HSE Center for Language and Brain Olga Dragoy.

Director of the HSE Center for Language and Brain Olga Dragoy visited the Rechts der Isar Clinic of the Technical University of Munich

Nine members of the Center for Language and Brain attended the annual Science of Aphasia conference that took place in Rome on 23-26 September 2019.

Director of the HSE Center for Language and Brain Olga Dragoy, and Andrey Zyryanov took part in the international conference European Low Grade Glioma Network, held in London.

Members of the Center for Language and Brain Olga Dragoy and Vardan Arutiunian participated at the 28th ANT Neuromeeting 2019 which was organised by ANT Neuro company.

Scientists from the Center for language and brain, HSE carried out a speech mapping during the awake-surgery

The Centre stems from the International Neurolinguistics Laboratory and brings together researchers in clinical linguistics, special needs education, psycholinguistics, bilingualism, child speech, and gerontolinguistics. The Centre’s academic supervisor is Roelien Bastiaanse, Professor from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands), a researcher into clinical linguistics and founder of EMCL and IDEALAB, unique international educational programmes.

Family day at the Higher school of Economics in 2018 was held in the great hall of Russian Academy of Sciences, which at the time turned into a Higher school of experiments.

Svetlana Dorofeeva, a member of the HSE Center for language and brain, spoke at the 19th annual April HSE international conference in the section "The Russian language in the multilingual world".

New article about Center for Language and Brain was published recently on the website of our University: "Neurolinguistics Laboratory Wins 3-Year Grant to Study Prevention, Diagnostics and Therapy of Language Disorders".

The lab member of Center for Language and Brain Anastasiya Lopukhina at Linguistic Evidence 2018 in Germany

The HSE Center for Language and Brain studies a broad range of topics related to the connection between the brain and language. For Svetlana Malyutina, Deputy Head, and Mariya Khudyakova, Junior Research Fellow, particularly interesting areas of focus include the breakdown of language processing after brain damage (e.g., stroke, neurosurgery, epilepsy) and language acquisition in children.

The lab member of Center for Language and Brain Yulia Akinina, with her co-author the head of the lab Olga Dragoy presented their study on the traditional European Workshop on Cognitive Neuropsychology in Bressanone

At an exhibition held during the Russian Popular Front (ONF) Action Forum in Moscow, December 18-19, HSE neuro-linguists presented a method to preserve human speech after brain surgeries, and urbanists showcased sources of energy made of ceramics and moss.

Olga Dragoy, the head of the Center for Language and Brain (neurolinguistics Laboratory), HSE was awarded the prize "Golden HSE" for achievements in research

A numerous delegation of Lab members led by the head of the Lab attended the annual Science of Aphasia Conference 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Funding through the European programme Erasmus+ will be allocated to the development of a Master’s programme in clinical linguistics, the organization of a summer school on institutional analysis, and the creation of Russia's first courses on education law.

What happens in a person’s head when they hear speech or say something themselves? How does trauma and disease impact a person’s speech capabilities, and can we really help people who have certain medical conditions? Questions like these concern the life of language in the human brain, and this is exactly what researchers in the HSE Neurolinguistics Laboratory are currently studying.