Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Team

We’re thrilled to be part of Tools4NDDs, one of 83 projects funded by the 2024 MSCA Staff Exchanges by the European Commission!

Advancing a transdiagnostic approach to support children with ADHD, dyslexia & dyscalculia.

New marker for reading development - ZNZ Newsletter Silvia Brem’s research group from the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University Hospital of Psychiatry and the University of Zurich has shown how the organizati...

📰 New marker for reading development!
Check out our latest research featured in the ZNZ newsletter!

🔍 Our latest study highlights how the brain's structural organization can signal typical and impaired reading: znznews.ch/new-marker-f...

Exciting news! Dr. Iliana Karipidis @karipidis.bsky.social has been awarded the LEVANTE grant by the Jacobs Foundation, with our lab at the PUK, UZH joining the 1st cohort of LEVANTE research sites! Congrats Iliana on this well-deserved recognition of your work! read more

Our 12th CO-AIR webinar on audiovisual integration and reading is coming soon!

Join us Thu. May 22th, 6-8 pm (CEST, GMT+2)!

Inspiring talks by: Anastasiya Lopukhina, Ola Ozernov-Palchik, and Maha Ramamurthy

Program | Register: coairwebinar.wordpress.com/upcoming-eve...

Toward a Mechanistic Understanding of Reading Difficulties: Deviant Audiovisual Learning Dynamics and Network Connectivity in Children with Poor Reading Skills Mastering the associations between letters and their corresponding speech sounds (LSS) is pivotal in the early stages of reading development, requiring an effective reorganization of brain networks. C...

✨New Paper out✨

Using brain imaging and computational models, we found that children with poor reading skills showed less efficient learning of letter-speech sound links, with weaker brain connectivity and reduced modulation by a key learning region.

🔗 doi.org/10.1523/JNEU...

UZH: Research Scientist in developmental brain imaging The Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Group aims at a comprehensive understanding of brain networks and their development in healthy children and adolescents as well as children suffering from psyc...

🧠 We're hiring a Research Scientist (70–100%)

Help us to improve data recording and analyses techniques for pediatric MRI recordings and develop new methods to integrate multilevel data.

Learn more and apply here:
jobs.uzh.ch/job-vacancie...

Growing Minds, Integrating Senses: Neural and Computational Insights into Age-related Changes in Audio-Visual and Tactile-Visual Learning in Children Multisensory processing and learning shape cognitive and language development, influencing how we perceive and interact with the world from an early age. While multisensory processes mature into adole...

🚨 New preprint from our lab! 🚨

Our latest work on audio-visual and tactile visual multisensory learning in children is now live on bioRxiv:

doi.org/10.1101/2025....

Exciting findings from @ninaraduner.bsky.social and the team! Check it out and let us know your thoughts.

Sind Sie deutschsprachig mit wenigen Französischkenntnisse? Dann nehmen Sie an einer wissenschaftlichen Online-Studie über Sprache von @nocelab.bsky.social teil und helfen Sie dabei, den Einfluss der Sprache auf die Kognition zu verstehen.

Growing Minds, Integrating Senses: Neural and Computational Insights into Age-related Changes in Audio-Visual and Tactile-Visual Learning in Children Multisensory processing and learning shape cognitive and language development, influencing how we perceive and interact with the world from an early age. While multisensory processes mature into adole...

🧠 Excited to share my first preprint! Dive into my latest research on audio-visual and tactile-visual multisensory learning and explore the findings. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1101/2025...

#Research #Preprint #Science #Neuroscience #ComputationalModelling #MultisensoryLearning #Children

🦄 #BRAINFAIR! Diskussionsforum zum Thema „Sprachen lernen“ mit @sebastiansauppe.bsky.social, @Silvia Brem und mir.
📅 Mittwoch, 12. März 2025
⏰ 18:30 – 20:00 Uhr
📍 Grosser Hörsaal NORD 1, D 304 (Universitätsspital Zürich, Frauenklinikstrasse 10)

Moderiert wird die Veranstaltung von Rubina Meixger.

📍 Location: Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Zurich

🔬 Fields: developmental neuroscience, cognitive science, language development, psychology, neurobiology

✨ As a PhD student, you are responsible for the second phase of this longitudinal study, including the recruitment, collection of behavioral and (f)MRI data, supervision of students, data analysis, and publication of findings.

This interdisciplinary project, led by S. Brem and S. Di Pietro in collaboration with @ccruff.bsky.social, @noramraschle.bsky.social, M. von Rhein, and A. Rauch investigates the neurobiology of multisensory learning and its development in children with and without developmental language disorders.

UZH: PhD-Stelle im Universitären Forschungsschwerpunkt «Adaptive Brain Circuits during Learning and Development: AdaBD» Zu vergeben ist eine Doktorand*innenstelle als Teil des Projektes ChildBrainCircuits+ (CBC+) des universitären Forschungsschwerpunktes (UFSP) AdaBD. Das Projekt wird unter der Leitung von Prof. S. Bre...

🚀 PhD Position Opportunity in Child Brain Development Research 🧠

We are looking for a motivated PhD student to join the exciting ChildBrainCircuits+ project, part of the URPP Adaptive Brain Circuits in Development and Learning (AdaBD) at the University of Zurich.

jobs.uzh.ch/offene-stell...

From the lab to the classroom and back: The virtuous cycle between education and neuroscience Guest talk by Prof. Jason Yeatman, Stanford University When: Thursday, March 6 2025, 9:45-11:00 Where: Klinik für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Mehrzweckraum, Neumünsterallee 3, 80...

Join us on Thursday, March 6 for an exciting guest lecture by @jyeatman.bsky.social
"From the lab to the classroom and back: The virtuous cycle between education and neuroscience"

information and registration: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

#JobAlert: Das @jacobscenteruzh.bsky.social sucht zwei wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiter_innen (Postdoc), die das neu gegründete Swiss Evidence in Education Lab ( #SwissEdLab) verstärken.

Mehr Information: www.jacobscenter.uzh.ch/en/jobs/post...

#JobAlert: Wir suchen für das #SwissEdLab eine Person, die sich mit Projektkoordination und Wissenschaftskommunikation auskennt und uns in den kommenden Jahren unterstützt. Mehr Information unten oder hier: www.jacobscenter.uzh.ch/de/jobs/proj...

I had the pleasure of speaking at this month's CO-AIR webinar, where we discussed our review on Dyslexia in Bilinguals.
It was a fun talk with great questions afterwards!

A big thank you to everyone who attended and if you missed it, you can watch the recording👇

/🧵

The structural covariance of reading-related brain regions in adults and children with typical or poor reading skills Structural covariance (SC) is a promising approach for studying brain organization in the context of literacy and developmental disorders, offering in…

Very happy that this is finally out! We investigated the structural covariance of brain regions associated with reading and compared it between adults and children as well as between individuals with typical and poor reading skills.

#neuroskyence

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Functional brain activations correlated with association strength and prediction error during novel symbol–speech sound learning Abstract. Efficient learning of letters–speech sound associations results in the specialization of visual and audiovisual brain regions, which is crucial for the development of proficient reading skil...

This research advances our understanding of the neurobiology of learning and reading by investigating how the brain refines its responses within a single learning session.
📖 Read more: doi.org/10.1162/imag...

✅ Visual regions become specialized as audiovisual learning progressed within a single experimental session.
✅ Prediction errors, the model parameter which describe learning from feedback across trials, modulated activation in in mid-frontal, striatal, and cingulate regions.

🔬 This study explores changes in brain activity when learning new symbol–speech sound associations, a crucial process for reading development. It uses fMRI together with a computational model to describe learning based on feedback. Our results showed that:

Functional brain activations correlated with association strength and prediction error during novel symbol–speech sound learning Abstract. Efficient learning of letters–speech sound associations results in the specialization of visual and audiovisual brain regions, which is crucial for the development of proficient reading skil...

📢Publication Alert📢
Excited to share our latest research "Functional brain activations correlated with association strength and prediction error during novel symbol–speech sound learning" by Gorka Fraga Gonzalez et al.
doi.org/10.1162/imag...

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Team | LinkedIn Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Team | Unravelling the trajectories of cognition and language throughout childhood and adolescence | We are an interdisciplinary research team working at the Depar...

You can also find us on LinkedIn

www.linkedin.com/company/deve...

Our team is now on Bluesky! 💥🚀

Follow us for our latest projects, updates & opportunities to work with us!

Find also more about our work on brain development, learning disorders, and mental health in children & adolescents on our webpage www.kjpd.uzh.ch/en/transl-fo...

Feel free to reach out!