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Zaizhu Han
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Affiliation(s):
Beijing Normal University
Areas of Interest:
language disorders, white matter abnormalities
Biography & Research:
I completed my PhD of Cognitive Psychology at Beijing Normal University in 2002. Then I joined Beijing Normal University as a lecturer. During this period, I visited the Department of Psychology, Harvard University. Now I am the professor and deputy director of National Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience & Learning, Beijing Normal University. I am also the principle investigator of the National Social Science Fund of China and on the editor board of Acta Psychologica Sinica.
How our brain produces language is always a hot topic in neuroscience. Since the model of Broca-Wernicke-Geschwind promoted, language has been found to rely on more widespread brain regions and complex connections. Our aim is to understand the brain network of language processing, especially the semantic and orthographic processing from various perspectives, such as development, deterioration and damage of brain. To achieve this goal, we combine a range of stage-of-art approaches (including MRI, ECoG) with different subject types (blind, stroke, epilepsy and dementia). Also, we examine our model in health fMRI experiments and design new assessments for aphasia.
Current research:
Training health to learn new characters and scan them after learning to reveal the mechanism of character acquisition
Investigating the interaction of semantics, phonology and orthography using health fMRI
Encoding and decoding Chinese characters using fMRI signal
Investigating blind children and adults to show the reorganization stages of orthographic processing after visual deprivation
Investigating semantic dementia and its language deficits using resting-state fMRI, DTI and T1 images
Recording the electrical signal of epilepsy patients to reveal the mechanism of language with higher resolution.