Syntax processing in language and mathematical formulas

Diverse studies in neuroimaging have been conducted to characterize the network of brain areas related to the processing of natural language and more specifically to study effects of syntactic manipulation in language. Nonetheless less neuroimaging studies exist exploring the network of brain ares related to the processing of mathematical stimuli and the topic of syntactic manipulations in mathematics is relatively unexplored. In this research project some datasets from previous neuroimaging experimental designs will be analyzed and furthermore new experimental designs will proposed, conducted and analyzed to contribute to the existing evidence behind the characterization of the network of brain areas related to the processing of mathematical stimuli and to more specific syntactic manipulations in mathematics. ——————————  —————————— 1. PRELIMINARY SUMMARY OF THE INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCE, WORK CONDUCTED AND CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED. Before developing the main content of this report I would like to summarize all the different efforts that comprised my research experience during my internship in the Unicog lab in NeuroSpin under the supervision of Christophe Pallier. As I found out, working in the neuro­imaging field can be extremely challenging, since not only one has to become an expert on an specific topic of cognitive neuroscience to propose adequate experimental designs but moreover one has to become well acquainted with all the principles behind the machinery and technology employed to understand all the data acquisition, preprocessing and processing steps. These are not at all trivial in the case of MRI, which in itself is a modern technology still sensitive to advances in research and development. Furthermore a high level of mathematical, statistical and programming skills is required to be able to successfully conduct experiments and their analysis with certain level of independence. So far, I think this have been the most demanding and rich experience of work and research that I had in my life. During my research internship I accomplished many feats that will comprise what is presented in this report. Although it will seem in some cases that what I present still lacks many steps of analysis, I want to emphasize that neuroimaging experiments are normally expected to last 1 year, from the design of an experiment to its complete, although not necessarily exhaustive, analysis. In my case not only I approached a complete new field during the past 6 months but on top of that I was able to effectively design experiments and contribute to the implemented methods and programming pipeline of the laboratory for data analysis. My achievements could be summarized as: 1. Proposing effective and varied experimental designs to contribute to the state of the art knowledge of the given questions in this research project. 2. Conducting a pilot, based on the proposed experimental designs. 3. Conducting the acquisition and partial analysis (16 subjects out of 20 scanned to this day) of a complete experiment setup based on the proposed experimental designs, refined after the conduction of the pilot study. (The pilot study is not developed in this report for its methodological overlap with the complete experiment) 4. Developing an additional programmatic pipeline of analysis that could be reused in the laboratory for the general analysis of experimental designs that employs new tools developed at the laboratory and fulfills other purposes. 5. Realizing all the preliminary individual preprocessing and processing and group analysis of a previously developed experimental design, for which data was acquired, but analysis was pending. Taking advantage of the programmed pipeline.