Nicki attends summer school in Maryland

Nicki recently attended the Maryland Neuroimaging Center’s Summer Institute at the University of Maryland, College Park. It was organized by Nathan Fox and Elizabeth Redcay and this year’s focus was Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Speakers came from a variety of research backgrounds and utilized an assortment of neuroimaging methods, such as structural and functional MRI and resting state connectivity. Nicki particularly enjoyed a talk by Marina Bedney, from Johns Hopkins University, titled “Insights into the Origins of Language from Studies with Blind Individuals.” In her talk, Dr. Bedney discussed the plasticity of human cortical areas in development, specifically how an area may assume a wide range of cognitive functions (from sensory-vision to abstract-language) depending upon developmental experience. The two day Institute was incredibly informative and a great opportunity to meet and discuss research with both leaders and peers in the field of developmental neuroscience.