By Lilit Dulyan / 8 January 2026 Picture two walnuts. At first, they look nearly identical. But take a closer look, and you’ll see differences in their shape, texture, and colour. Our brains are like that too. They follow a shared blueprint—folds, cells, and wiring—but the details vary from one person to the next.  More than a hundred years ago, doctors looked at brains after people died and noticed that no two had exactly the same pattern of bumps and grooves. Today, brain

Stephanie Forkel, Principal Investigator at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, has been awarded a prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant worth €2 million. Her five-year project, EMERGENCE, will begin in 2026 and aims to transform our understanding of how language arises from the complex interplay of neural systems in the human brain. For more than a century, theories of language have centred on a small set of cortical regions—most famously Broca’s area, ass

When operating on gliomas near critical language regions, surgeons risk either leaving residual tumor or inducing permanent postoperative language deficits (PLDs). Despite the advent of intraoperative mapping techniques, subjective judgments frequently determine important surgical decisions. We aim to inform data-driven surgery by constructing a non-invasive mapping approach that quantitatively predicts the impact of individual surgical decisions on long-term language functio

NEURAL 2025 “Emergent Properties of the Connected Brain” begins in Bordeaux today! The room is ready, the programmes are set, and a week of deep discussion on  emergence  is about to start. We’re welcoming an international, multidisciplinary group to explore how complex meaning arises across levels — from neural dynamics to  cognition  — using the latest  neuroimaging  tools across  neurosurgery   neuroscience   linguistics   neurology   speechandlanguagetherapy . 🧠 Tools an

Excited to be giving a  keynote  at the Gesellschaft für  Aphasieforschung  und -behandlung (GAB) this week in Aachen, Germany. I’ll be speaking on the reorganisation of  language   networks  in  aphasia  — bringing together insights from  neuroanatomy , variability in white matter connectivity, and the potential of receptor-enriched connectomics. Looking forward to engaging with  clinicians ,  researchers , and  therapists  dedicated to advancing our understanding and  treat

We are pleased to have been invited to contribute two chapters to the new edition of this book: Combining nTMS and Tractography for...