Periodic Tables: What Makes Us Speak?

For most of us, our brain oversees our effortless ability to speak. How does it do this? And how can we read the brain to restore speech in patients who have lost this ability? This month at Periodic Tables, Dr. Gregory Cogan, director of research for the Duke Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, will take the audience on a guided tour of the brain’s remarkable and unique capacity to enable human speech and language.  

Dr. Gregory B. Cogan obtained his Bachelors in Psychology at Queen’s University, Canada, followed by his masters in Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He completed his PhD in 2011 at the University of Maryland, College Park. He then carried out his postdoctoral work at the Center for Neuroscience at New York University (CNS – NYU) and in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Duke University. Dr. Cogan is currently an Associate Professor at Duke University in the Department of Neurology, Neurosurgery, Biomedical Engineering, and Psychology and Neuroscience. He is also as a member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. Since 2019, he is the Director of Research for the Duke Comprehensive Epilepsy Center (DCEC). Dr. Cogan’s work focuses on understanding how the brain enables the uniquely human capacity for speech and language: What makes us speak? His research program tackles this problem by leveraging opportunities from neurosurgical patients and direct recordings in the human brain. This insight gained from understanding the brain also enables new treatment options for restoring speech in patients through brain computer interfaces. 

Individuals over the age of 21 are welcome to hang in the bar after 6:30 p.m.