Georgios P. D. Argyropoulos - Translational Neuroscience of Speech and Language Disorders

Contemporary Clinical Neurosciences bridges the gap between bench research in the neurosciences and clinical neurology work by offering translational research on all aspects of the human brain and behavior with a special emphasis on the understanding, treatment, and eradication of diseases of the human nervous system. These novel, state-of-the-art research volumes present a wide array of preclinical and clinical research programs to a wide spectrum of readers representing the diversity of neuroscience as a discipline. Volumes in the series have focused on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Neurodegenerative diseases, G Protein Receptors, Sleep disorders, and Addiction issues.

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Advances over the past few decades in the neuroscience of speech and language underscore the potential for efficiently preventing the impairment, predicting and impeding the deterioration, or enhancing the recovery of speech and language function. Nevertheless, the translation of such advances into clinical applications remains strikingly slow. Virtually in their entirety, the large number of contemporary volumes that combine insight from neuroscience and speechlanguage pathology includes very little discussion of the translational insight that the relevant fields provide on prevention, prediction, and rehabilitation of speech and language disorders. While international scientific journals on the neuroscience of speech and language have been occasionally hosting special issues and reviews dedicated to translational neuroscience over the last decade, such papers have almost exclusively considered stroke-induced aphasia as the disorder of interest. Importantly, such work has not so far been represented in the form of a volume.

Instead of providing yet another volume dedicated to the Neuropsychology of speech and language disorders, or to the Cognitive Neuroscience of speech and language, this edited volume provides the first presentation of the state-of-the-art in the application of modern Neuroscience research in predicting, preventing, and alleviating the negative sequelae of neurodevelopmental, acquired, or neurodegenerative brain abnormalities on speech and language.

To this aim, this volume brings together contributions from several leading experts in a markedly broad range of disciplines, comprising Neurology, Neurosurgery, Genetics, Engineering, Neuroimaging and Neurostimulation, Neuropsychology, and Speech and Language Therapy. Likewise, the primary audience of this work comprises frontline clinicians, clinical and cognitive neuroscientists, neuropsychologists and neurologists, speech and language pathologists/therapists, health researchers, and assistive technologists.

This volume is evidently far from exhaustive with respect to either the vast range of speech and language disorders or the different theoretical frameworks and techniques that can afford us translational insight. However, we do hope to provide a framework for discussion, enabling scientists in academia or industry, or, alternatively, from preclinical or clinical backgrounds, to establish a more common language, methodology, and motivation for conducting translational research in speech and language disorders. The reader will find not only state-of-the-art contributions, but also novel venues that are being investigated in a growing number of laboratories worldwide.

I would like to thank all of the contributors to this volume who have found time to prepare their chapters despite a busy schedule, as well as the anonymous reviewers for their valuable feedback. Additionally, I am very grateful to the Editor of the Series, Mario Manto, as well as the staff of Springer for their support and encouragement in making this volume possible.

Finally, this edited volume is dedicated to the memory of Prof. Peter Marin, whose pioneering work continues to inspire us.