Narly Golestani

People‎ > ‎

Tél: +41 22 37 95 728

I obtained my PhD in clinical psychology (with practical training in adult psychotherapy and in clinical neuropsychology) at McGill University in Montreal, Canada in 2002. In parallel to clinical training I did fundamental research at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) in the area of cognitive neuroscience of language with Drs Robert Zatorre and Thomas Paus, and my thesis was on the topic of brain structural and functional correlates of non-native phonetic learning.

Since then I have continued to do cognitive neuroscience research on the brain, language and bilingualism, first during a post-doc that I did in collaboration with Dr. Christophe Pallier at the Unité INSERM 562, Service Hospitalier Frédéric Joliot (SHFJ), CEA, Orsay, France. I then was a Senior Research Fellow in the group of Dr. Sophie Scott at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (ICN), University College London (UCL) in London, UK. There I further developed my expertise in the following two main areas of work. The first involves the study of functional brain correlates (using fMRI) of multiple language acquisition, with an emphasis on specific language components such as phonology and grammar, but also on the interplay between non-linguistic functions and second language acquisition. My second area of specialization involves uncovering normative and expertise-related brain structure – behavior relationships, with the use of anatomical magnetic resonance imaging (aMRI), as well as of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and of diffusion spectrum imaging (DSI). In all of my work I have always placed a special emphasis on individual differences. More recently I have started to study structural and functional plasticity in the human adult brain after compared to before the attainment of language-related expertise.

I’m currently working as Maître Assistante (Project Leader) in Prof. Christoph Michel’s Functional Brain Mapping Laboratory in Geneva.

You can also visit my Google Site page.