Kate Watkins

Last updated
Kate Watkins
Born
Kathryn Emma Watkins
Alma mater University of Cambridge (BA)
University College London (MSc, PhD)
Scientific career
Fields Speech
Language
Development disorders
Sensorimotor interactions [1]
Institutions UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health
University of Oxford
Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital
Thesis Neuropsychological and neuroimaging investigations of an inherited disorder of speech and language  (1999)
Doctoral advisor Faraneh Vargha-Khadem
Website www.psy.ox.ac.uk/team/kate-watkins

Kathryn Emma Watkins is an experimental psychologist in the Wellcome Trust centre for integrative neuroimaging at the University of Oxford and a tutorial fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford. [2] Her research investigates the brain processes that underlie speech, language and development. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Watkins was educated at the University of Cambridge where she studied the Natural Sciences Tripos as a student of Christ's College, Cambridge. [3] She completed postgraduate research and study in neuropsychology at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. [4] For her PhD [5] in neuropsychology she used structural image analysis to study the KE family, who have a severe motor speech disorder and a mutation in the FOXP2 gene. She worked with Faraneh Vargha-Khadem and David Gadian  [ Wikidata ]. [6]

Career and research

Watkins was a postdoctoral researcher with Tomas Paus in the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital. Here she used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), a method of stimulating the brain, in combination with electromyography (EMG) recordings of the lip and positron emission tomography (PET) imaging to identify the role of the motor cortex in speech perception. [6] She also worked alongside Brenda Milner. [7]

Watkins was appointed to the University of Oxford Functional MRI of the Brain (FMRIB) centre in 2003. She began to lecture experimental psychology at St Anne's College, Oxford in 2006. Watkins established the University of Oxford speech and brain research group, which uses neuroimaging and neurostimulation to monitor the sensorimotor interactions required for speech. [6] Watkins uses cognitive neuroscience to investigate speech and language development. She is particularly interested in people who have stuttering, developmental verbal dyspraxia and aphasia. [8] She has demonstrated that there are small differences in the brain activity of people who do and don't stutter, with more activity in the right hemisphere. [9] [10]

She completed a randomized controlled trial that demonstrated that transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) can be used to enhance fluency in people who stutter.[ citation needed ] tDCS involves passing a small current through the brain, and could be used in combination with speech training to make more permanent improvements to fluency. [9] It increases the firing rate of neurons in brain regions that Watkins has identified as important in speech disorder. [9] She combines magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to measure brain activity as well as the activity from the muscles responsible for producing speech. [11]

Selected publications

Her publications [2] [1] include:


Watkins serves as the editor-in-chief of the open access journal Neurobiology of Language. [16]

Related Research Articles

Stuttering, also known as stammering, is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words, or phrases as well as involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the person who stutters is unable to produce sounds. The term stuttering is most commonly associated with involuntary sound repetition, but it also encompasses the abnormal hesitation or pausing before speech, referred to by people who stutter as blocks, and the prolongation of certain sounds, usually vowels or semivowels. According to Watkins et al., stuttering is a disorder of "selection, initiation, and execution of motor sequences necessary for fluent speech production". For many people who stutter, repetition is the main concern. The term "stuttering" covers a wide range of severity, from barely perceptible impediments that are largely cosmetic to severe symptoms that effectively prevent oral communication. Almost 70 million people worldwide stutter, about 1% of the world's population.

Brocas area Speech production region in the dominant hemisphere of the hominid brain

Broca's area, or the Broca area, is a region in the frontal lobe of the dominant hemisphere, usually the left, of the brain with functions linked to speech production.

Transcranial magnetic stimulation Form of brain stimulation using magnetic fields

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive form of brain stimulation in which a changing magnetic field is used to cause electric current at a specific area of the brain through electromagnetic induction. An electric pulse generator, or stimulator, is connected to a magnetic coil, which in turn is connected to the scalp. The stimulator generates a changing electric current within the coil which induces a magnetic field; this field then causes a second inductance of inverted electric charge within the brain itself.

FOXP2 Transcription factor gene of the forkhead box family

Forkhead box protein P2 (FOXP2) is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the FOXP2 gene. FOXP2 is a member of the forkhead box family of transcription factors, proteins that regulate gene expression by binding to DNA. It is expressed in the brain, heart, lungs and digestive system.

Brodmann area 46

Brodmann area 46, or BA46, is part of the frontal cortex in the human brain. It is between BA10 and BA45.

Expressive language disorder is a communication disorder in which there are difficulties with verbal and written expression. It is a specific language impairment characterized by an ability to use expressive spoken language that is markedly below the appropriate level for the mental age, but with a language comprehension that is within normal limits. There can be problems with vocabulary, producing complex sentences, and remembering words, and there may or may not be abnormalities in articulation.

Transcranial direct-current stimulation Technique of brain electric stimulation therapy

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a form of neuromodulation that uses constant, low direct current delivered via electrodes on the head. It was originally developed to help patients with brain injuries or neuropsychiatric conditions such as major depressive disorder. It can be contrasted with cranial electrotherapy stimulation, which generally uses alternating current the same way, as well as transcranial magnetic stimulation.

The KE family is a medical name designated for a British family, about half of whom exhibit a severe speech disorder called developmental verbal dyspraxia. It is the first family with speech disorder to be investigated using genetic analyses, by which the speech impairment is discovered to be due to genetic mutation, and from which the gene FOXP2, often dubbed the "language gene", was discovered. Their condition is also the first human speech and language disorder known to exhibit strict Mendelian inheritance.

Marc Jeannerod

Marc Jeannerod was a neurologist, a neurophysiologist and an internationally recognized expert in cognitive neuroscience and experimental psychology. His research focuses on the cognitive and neurophysiological mechanisms underpinning motor control, motor cognition, the sense of agency, and more recently language and social cognition. Jeannerod's work bridges with elegance and rigor various levels of analysis, ranging from neuroscience to philosophy of mind, with clear implications for the understanding of a number of psychiatric and neurological disorders, especially schizophrenia.

Neurostimulation is the purposeful modulation of the nervous system's activity using invasive or non-invasive means. Neurostimulation usually refers to the electromagnetic approaches to neuromodulation.

Simon Fisher British geneticist and neuroscientist (born 1970)

Simon E. Fisher is a British geneticist and neuroscientist who has pioneered research into the genetic basis of human speech and language. He is a director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Professor of language and genetics at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour in Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Developmental verbal dyspraxia Medical condition

Developmental verbal dyspraxia (DVD), also known as childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) and developmental apraxia of speech (DAS), is a condition in which children have problems saying sounds, syllables and words. This is not because of muscle weakness or paralysis. The brain has problems planning to move the body parts needed for speech. The child knows what they want to say, but their brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say those words.

Faraneh Vargha-Khadem is a British cognitive neuroscientist specializing in developmental amnesia among children. Faraneh was a part of the team that identified the FOXP2 gene, the so-called 'speech gene', that may explain why humans talk and chimps do not.

Social cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of the biological processes underpinning social cognition. Specifically, it uses the tools of neuroscience to study "the mental mechanisms that create, frame, regulate, and respond to our experience of the social world". Social cognitive neuroscience uses the epistemological foundations of cognitive neuroscience, and is closely related to social neuroscience. Social cognitive neuroscience employs human neuroimaging, typically using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Human brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct-current stimulation are also used. In nonhuman animals, direct electrophysiological recordings and electrical stimulation of single cells and neuronal populations are utilized for investigating lower-level social cognitive processes.

Steven L. Small is the Aage and Margareta Møller Distinguished Professor in Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, and dean of its School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Small is a specialist in the neurobiology of language.  

Catherine "Cathy" J. Price is a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience and Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London.

Developmental Dysfluency or "normal dysfluency" is the disruption of the ongoing flow of a child's speech patterns during the ages of about 3 to 4 years old. Dysfluency refers to the broken up nature of outgoing speech and can be characterized by long pauses or the insertion of filler words.

Charlotte Stagg is a British neurophysiologist who is a Professor at the University of Oxford. She leads the Physiological Neuroimaging Group.

Sharlene D. Newman is an American cognitive neuroscientist, executive director of the Alabama Life Research Institute at the University of Alabama (UA), Professor in the Department of Psychology at UA, and an adjunct professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Kate Watkins publications indexed by Google Scholar OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  2. 1 2 Kate Watkins publications from Europe PubMed Central
  3. ↑ Kate Watkin's ORCID   0000-0002-2621-482X
  4. ↑ "Kate Watkins — Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience". psy.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved 2019-08-03.
  5. ↑ Watkins, Kathryn Emma (1999). Neuropsychological and neuroimaging investigations of an inherited disorder of speech and language. london.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University College London (University of London). OCLC   1006195690. EThOS   uk.bl.ethos.368074.
  6. 1 2 3 "Professor Kate Watkins". brainbox-initiative.com. Brainbox Initiative. Retrieved 2019-08-03.
  7. ↑ Klein, Denise; Watkins, Kate E. (2018). "Brenda Milner on her 100th birthday: a lifetime of 'good ideas'". Brain. 141 (8): 2527–2532. doi: 10.1093/brain/awy186 . ISSN   0006-8950. PMID   29992281.
  8. ↑ "Kate Watkins – StutterTalk: Changing how you think about stuttering". stuttertalk.com. Retrieved 2019-08-03.
  9. 1 2 3 Devlin, Hannah (2019). "Electrical stimulation of brain trialled as aid to treating stutter". theguardian.com. The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved 2019-08-03.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  10. ↑ "Differences in the Brains of People Who Stutter". stutteringhelp.org. Stuttering Foundation.
  11. ↑ "INSTEP TRIAL". insteptrial.wordpress.com. Retrieved 2019-08-03.
  12. ↑ Smith, Stephen M.; Jenkinson, Mark; Johansen-Berg, Heidi; Rueckert, Daniel; Nichols, Thomas E.; Mackay, Clare E.; Watkins, Kate E.; Ciccarelli, Olga; Cader, M. Zaheer; Matthews, Paul M.; Behrens, Timothy E.J. (2006). "Tract-based spatial statistics: Voxelwise analysis of multi-subject diffusion data". NeuroImage. 31 (4): 1487–1505. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.02.024. ISSN   1053-8119. PMID   16624579. S2CID   7133484. Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  13. ↑ Smith, S. M.; Fox, P. T.; Miller, K. L.; Glahn, D. C.; Fox, P. M.; Mackay, C. E.; Filippini, N.; Watkins, K. E.; Toro, R.; Laird, A. R.; Beckmann, C. F. (2009). "Correspondence of the brain's functional architecture during activation and rest". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 106 (31): 13040–13045. doi:10.1073/pnas.0905267106. ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   2722273 . PMID   19620724.
  14. ↑ Vargha-Khadem, F.; Gadian, D. G.; Watkins, K. E.; Connelly, A.; Van Paesschen, W.; Mishkin, M. (1997). "Differential Effects of Early Hippocampal Pathology on Episodic and Semantic Memory". Science. 277 (5324): 376–380. doi:10.1126/science.277.5324.376. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   9219696.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
  15. ↑ Watkins, K.E.; Strafella, A.P.; Paus, T. (2003). "Seeing and hearing speech excites the motor system involved in speech production". Neuropsychologia. 41 (8): 989–994. doi:10.1016/S0028-3932(02)00316-0. ISSN   0028-3932. PMID   12667534. S2CID   518384. Closed Access logo transparent.svg
  16. ↑ "Neurobiology of Language : Steven L. Small and Kate E. Watkins, Editors-in-Chief". mitpressjournals.org. Retrieved 2019-08-03.
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