News & Insights
CBR Seminar Series: Sigfus Kristinsson
Behavioral speech-language therapy (SLT) is the most effective and widely used approach for treating post-stroke aphasia. While effective on average, individual variability in treated recovery continues to be problematic for the development of personalized treatment protocols. Recent research shows that many individuals show a selective response to one treatment paradigm over another, highlighting the need to consider individual and treatment-specific factors—and their interaction—as guides in personalized treatment planning. However, prognostic factors for treatment success remain elusive and understudied. More
Care Onward Panel
Care Onward Panel: Transition Care for Stroke and Aphasia Survivors On April 28th, the Center for Brain Recovery hosted a panel in collaboration with Stroke Onward discussing transition care for stroke and aphasia survivors. The event included valuable dialogue amongst healthcare professionals, researchers, and survivors about challenges, opportunities, and advocacy. Panelists included: Dr. David Lin, Neurologist, More
CBR Seminar Series: Preeti Sunderaraman
CBR Seminar Series: Preeti Sunderaraman, May 12, 2025 Title: Innovations in Financial Management Assessment – Preliminary Evidence from a simulated technology task Abstract: Early identification of financial mismanagement is critical, especially in populations vulnerable to impaired cognition. Such populations are known to experience substantial and, at times, recurring financial loss. Despite having tremendous clinical... More
An Introduction to Machine Learning for Speech-Language Pathologists: Concepts, Terminology, and Emerging Applications
Cordella, C., Marte, M. J., Liu, H., & Kiran, S. (2024). An Introduction to Machine Learning for Speech-Language Pathologists: Concepts, Terminology, and Emerging Applications. Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups. https://doi.org/10.1044/2024_PERSP-24-00037 Purpose The purpose of this article is to orient clinicians and researchers to machine learning (ML) approaches, as applied to... More
Faculty Feature: Elizabeth Hoover
Dr. Hoover is a Clinical Professor at Boston University, a Core Faculty member for the Center for Brain Recovery, and the Clinical Director of the BU Aphasia Resource Center. Q&A with Elizabeth Hoover What is your current research focus, and how does it align with the Center for Brain Recovery's mission? Our research... More
CBR Seminar Series: Michael Alosco
CBR Seminar Series: Michael Alosco, February 24, 2025 Title: Beyond Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy: Long-Term White Matter and Vascular Consequences of Repetitive TBIs Abstract: Exposure to repetitive traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) from contact and collision sports and other sources have been identified as a risk factor for the neurodegenerative tauopathy chronic traumatic encephalopathy... More
History of the Center for Brain Recovery
Our History The Center for Brain Recovery (CBR) was first established at Boston University in 2009 as the “Aphasia Research Laboratory” with the primary goal of understanding language processing and communication following brain damage. Following the initiation of the Aphasia Research Laboratory, the lab received its first PhD student in 2010. Since... More
The CBR Internship Program
Interview with Scientific Director Maria Varkanitsa and Intern Isabel Yu The Undergraduate Internship Experience Isabel Yu, is an undergraduate neuroscience student at Boston University and has been a member of the Center for Brain Recovery (CBR) internship program since the fall. Through working with Manuel Marte on his “Naturalistic Neuroimaging for Presurgical... More
CBR Seminar Series: Sofia Vallila Rohter
CBR Seminar Series: Sofia Vallila Rohter, January 27, 2025 Title: Rehabilitation as Learning: Examining learning and strategy use in people with aphasia Abstract: Linguistic deficits are central to the diagnosis and treatment of aphasia, yet there is increasing recognition of the cognitive processes that contribute to rehabilitation outcomes, particularly the role of... More
Dr. Swathi Kiran receives the Honors of the Association Award
CBR Founding Director Dr. Swathi Kiran receives the Honors of the Association Award from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. The Honors of the Association recognizes members for their distinguished contributions to the discipline of communication sciences and disorders, whose contributions have been of such excellence that they have enhanced or altered the... More
9 CBR Students Present Their Research Around the World
Featuring interviews with Student Presentations at the Society for the Neurobiology of Language Conference (SNL) in Brisbane, Australia, and the Academy of Aphasia 62nd Annual Meeting in Nara, Japan. About the conferences The Society for the Neurobiology of Language (SNL), founded in November of 2010, is an NIH-funded non-profit organization whose overarching... More
Visiting the Center for Brain Recovery: Interview with BU CBR Alumni Visiting Scholars Karen Arellano and Brandi BeCoats.
The Center for Brain Recovery hosts a passionate team of undergraduate and master’s students, PhD candidates, faculty and staff. CBR also welcomes visiting students and interns from other institutions to collaborate on research projects and receive valuable training. In this edition, we interviewed two of our visiting scholars Karen Arellano... More
2nd Annual Neuroscience of the Everyday World Conference at Boston University, 2024
This August, the BU Center for Brain Recovery teamed up with the Neurophotonics Center and Rafiki B Hariri Center for Computing to host the second annual Neuroscience of the Everyday World Conference at Boston University with Co-Host Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute. The event brought together over 450 attendees from... More
Using Unsupervised Dimensionality Reduction to Identify Lesion Patterns Predictive of Post-Stroke Aphasia Severity
Interview with CBR Undergraduate Student Emerson Kropp about his recent research: Using Unsupervised Dimensionality Reduction to Identify Lesion Patterns Predictive of Post-Stroke Aphasia Severity Introduction Emerson Kropp is an undergraduate student at Boston University studying under Dr. Kiran in the Center for Brain Recovery as he completes his premedical bachelors degree in... More
Naturalistic Assessment of Language and Emotion Brain Recovery Through Real World Language Studies
Introduction In this interview with Center for Brain Recovery PhD Student Manuel Marte, we explore his interdisciplinary project which dives into a Naturalistic Assessment of Language and Emotion. This research aims to build off of the use of movie fMRI (mv-fMRI) for presurgical language mapping and has benefited greatly from the... More