Gradients of plasticity
Language and emotion in children with unilateral perinatal stroke
Lara Polse | University of California San Diego,
USA
Philip Lai | University of California San Diego,
USA
Despite their partially distinctive neural substrates, in typical adults language
and emotion function together as well-integrated communicative systems. Both
patient and neuroimaging research has furthered our knowledge of the brain
organization underlying language and emotion, yet we know little about how
this organization develops. In this chapter we discuss the initial state of brain
organization for language and emotion, and how these systems develop and
change over developmental time. We address these topics by investigating patterns
of language and emotion processing in a population of infants and young
children with unilateral perinatal strokes. Our studies reveal gradients of neural
plasticity across language and emotion communicative systems, with relatively
greater neural plasticity for language compared to emotion-processing.