2022-DCAL-XMAS-NEWLETTER-VALERIA-VINOGRADOVA

Our research on the deaf brain was featured on the cover of Brain, one of the most prestigious neuroscience journals. In our new paper we found that regions of the brain that in hearing people are involved in understanding sounds have different roles in deaf people. We found that these regions in deaf people are involved in higher-order cognitive functions, which are the mental processes that allow people to learn and interact with the world. We also found that language skills, either in sign or spoken language, predict performance in cognitive tasks. This highlights the importance of early access to language for the development of cognitive skills, independently of the modality of the language. The art on the cover is by artist Rubbena Aurangzeb-Tariq. Rubbena is an artist and facilitator whose work concerns culture and deaf identity. In this work she asks ‘Why is it that given the same information, we perceive things differently?’. This collaboration is a great example of science a