RUTH DE DIEGO BALAGUER
ICREA Researcher
Education: Psychology Degree, PhD in Psychology
Research interest : Language, Huntington Disease
Research Interest
My research combines information from brain-damaged patients and imaging in healthy individuals to understand whether words and rules of language require different neural and cognitive mechanisms to be acquired since the earliest stages of contact with a new language. I am particularly interested in the role of the striatum as a brain structure that could make the interface between language and other cognitive functions necessary in the learning process.
Webpage
Contact: ruth.dediego at icrea.cat
PUBLICATIONS
de Diego Balaguer, R., Rodriguez-Fornells, A. (2010). Contributions to the functional neuroanatomy of morphosyntactic processing in L2. Language Learning, 60, 231-259.
De Diego-Balaguer R. Lopez-Barroso D. (2010) Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms Sustaining Rule Learning from Speech. Language Learning (in press)
Rodriguez-Fornells, A., Cunillera, T., Mestres-Missé, A., de Diego-Balaguer, R. Neurophysiological mechanisms involved in language learning in adults. (2009) Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 364, 3711-3735.
De Diego-Balaguer R., Couette M., Dolbeau G., Dürr A., Youssov K., Bachoud-Lévi A.-C. (2008). Striatal Degeneration impairs Language Learning: Evidence from Huntington’s Disease. Brain, 131 (11), 2870-2881.
De Gelder B., Van den Stock J., De Diego-Balaguer R., Bachoud-Lévi A.-C. (2008). Huntington’s disease impairs recognition of angry and instrumental body language. Neuropsychologia, 46 ,369–373
de Diego-Balaguer, R., Toro, J.M., Rodriguez-Fornells, A., Bachoud-Lévi, A.C. Different neurophysiological mechanisms underlying word and rule extraction from speech. PLoS ONE, 2(11): e1175.
de Diego-Balaguer R, Rodríguez-Fornells A, Rotte M, Bahlmann J, Heinze HJ, Münte TF. Neural Circuits Subserving the Retrieval of Stems and Grammatical Features in Regular and Irregular Verbs. Human Brain Mapping, 27, 874-888.
Sebastian-Galles, N., Rodriguez-Fornells, A., de Diego-Balaguer, R., & Díaz, B. (2006). First and second language phonological representations in the mental lexicon. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 1277-1291.
Rodriguez-Fornells, A., de Diego-Balaguer, R., Münte, TF. (2006). Executive functions in bilingual language processing. Language Learning, 56, 133-190.
de Diego-Balaguer, R., Sebastian-Galles, N., Diaz, B., Rodriguez-Fornells, A. (2005). Morphological processing in early bilinguals: an ERP study on regular and irregular verb processing. Cognitive Brain Research, 25, 312-327.
De Diego-Balaguer R., Costa A., Sebastián-Galles N., Juncadella M. & Caramazza, A. (2004). Regular and Irregular morphology and its relationship with agrammatism: Evidence from two Spanish/Catalan bilinguals. Brain and Language, 91, 212-222
De Diego-Balaguer R., Costa A., Sebastián Gallés N., Juncadella M. & Caramazza, A. (2004). Regular and Irregular morphology and its relationship with agrammatism: Evidence from Spanish and Catalan. Cortex, 40 (1). 157-158.
Rodriguez-Fornells, A., de Diego-Balaguer, R. (2004). Comentario acerca de la definición y líneas de investigación propias de la Neurociencia Cognitiva. Cognitiva, 16, 219-225.