May 6, 2019 | Erin Bluvas, bluvase@sc.edu
Communication sciences and disorders (COMD) professor Julius Fridriksson has been recruited to serve as an editor for the new journal, Neurobiology of Language. Sponsored by the Society for the Neurobiology of Language and funded by the National Science Foundation and MIT Libraries, this journal will publish papers addressing the neurobiological basis of speech and language.
According to an MIT Libraries press release, Neurobiology of Language “invites innovative work that significantly advances the understanding of language mechanisms as implemented in the human brain. Topics of interest include the biological foundations of perceptual, cognitive, motor, and linguistic processes used to produce and understand language in children and adults, and in healthy individuals and those with brain disorders.”
Fridriksson and his co-editors will be looking for articles that draw on a range of methods, such as behavioral paradigms, genetics, functional and structural neuroanatomy, extracranial and intracranial brain stimulation and recording, and brain-computer interfaces. Submissions may include clinical and nonclinical trials, novel experimental studies, computational and theoretical models, replication studies, and review articles. Further, this new journal will offer open access publishing, rigorous double-blind peer review and quick turnaround times for authors.
“In the past two decades there has been an explosion in research on how the human brain processes language,” says Fridriksson. “Neurobiology of Language is the first open access journal that is solely devoted to this topic. I suspect journals that require readers to pay for access to publications are on the way out and will soon be completely replaced by the open access format. This is a necessary and logical progression since the scientists who contribute the research should not also have to pay extra to read about progress in their field.”
An internationally renowned authority on aphasia (i.e., a communication disorder resulting from stroke or injury to the brain that impacts patients’ ability to speak, listen, read and/or write but does not affect intelligence), Fridriksson’s research focuses on cognitive health and post-stroke communication. He directs the Aphasia Laboratory, which houses the Center for the Study of Aphasia Recovery—an $11.1 million project funded by National Institutes of Health. Fridriksson co-directs UofSC’s McCausland Center, serves as the S.C. SmartState Endowed Chair of Memory and Brain Function for the SeniorSMARTTM Center of Economic Excellence, and leads the Arnold Brain Fitness Initiative of the Gerry Sue and Norman J. Arnold Institute on Aging.
In 2017, he won the 2017 Breakthrough Leadership in Research Award from the Office of the Vice President for Research, and in both 2010 and 2016, he received the Arnold School of Public Health Faculty Research Award (the only faculty member to win the award twice since it was established in 1990). Fridriksson is also a recipient of the Louis M. DiCarlo Award for Clinical Advancement from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation (2011) and was named a Health Care Hero in Research by the Columbia Regional Business Report (2010).
Related:
Recovery starts here. Stroke Belt research pays off for patients
COMD’s Julius Fridriksson receives 2017 Breakthrough Leadership in Research Award
Public health researcher Julius Fridriksson helps stroke victims recover their words
Julius Fridriksson named S.C. SmartState Endowed Chair of Memory and Brain Function