EP.03: The Brain Basis of Reading Pacific Education Pulse

This PEP Talk episode features Dr. Joanna Christodoulou, who shares her research findings on the brain basis of reading. Dr. Christodoulou is the Director of the Brain, Education, and Mind (BEAM) Lab of the MGH Institute of Health Professions, where she integrates roles as developmental cognitive neuroscientist, clinician, and Associate Professor. She talks about her program of research, conducted at MIT in the Gabrieli Lab and at MGH Institute of Health Professions, which focuses on brain and behavior correlates of development, difficulties, and intervention effects for reading. Some of the topics she covers include the neural routes of reading, differences in neural activity associated with varying language systems, and instructional strategies that have demonstrated increased activation in specific brain regions. Dr. Christodoulou's award-winning research has been supported by organizations including the Spencer Foundation; the Fulbright Foundation; the Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative at Harvard; and the National Institutes of Health.