Achievement

IGERT Associate Kornilov is bridging cognitive neuroscience (Magnuson, PI) and behavior and molecular genetics (Grigorenko, Investigator). Grigorenko has been genotyping residents of a remote Russian village with high incidence of language impairment and absence of other cognitive deficits. Kornilov used Magnuson’s electroencephalography rig to assess cognitive and linguistic abilities in impaired and unimpaired village children with 6 experimental tasks. So far, we have analyzed 3. Event-related potentials reveal normally detailed phonetic resolution in impaired children; deficits emerge in linguistic and nonlinguistic tasks requiring sustained attention, with intriguing differences in sensitivity to phonological overlap (e.g., impaired children show less sensitivity to rhyming). Grigorenko is training Kornilov in genetic techniques so he can lead genetic analyses of individual differences that could be linked to our experiments. One paper has been submitted.