That's me

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That's me a bit more serious in fabulous Leipzig. © MPI CBS
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That's me in sunny Marseille.

Research Interests

I'm now leading the "Evolution" subgroup in great Sofie Valk's Lise Meitner Cognitive Neurogenetics groups!
We will continue to study structural cortical connectivity across great ape species. We will also move to subcortical regions, such as the cerebellum, to explore the evolution of sociality. On top we will translate some of our research questions from baboons to human children.
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More infos to follow!
Thanks to the Fyssen Foundation, I'm working at the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, at the Neuropsychology Department (Angela D. Friederici), in the cross-institutional "Evolution of Brain Connectivity" project.

Thanks to many amazing collaborators, we receive brains in Leipzig from chimpanzees who died naturally or unavoidably, collected from African wildlife field-sites, sanctuaries, and European zoos. By optimising MRI parameters (especially diffusion MRI: headed by Alfred Anwander), we can now study the neuroanatomy of the chimpanzee in unprecedented precision.

Importantly, behavioural data of the same individuals were collected over years (vocal communication:  Catherine Crockford, tool-use: Roman Wittig).

My overall aim is to bring both sides (brain and behaviour) together in order to advance our understanding of the evolution of language.​

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In my PhD project (supervisors: Adrien Meguerditchian and Olivier Coulon (LPC, INT, CNRS/Aix-Marseille), I have investigated whether similar brain lateralisation for homologous brain areas and fibres also exists in our close primate relatives (mainly baboons, but also chimpanzees) and how they develop.
Curiously, there seems to be a link between this lateralisation and hand preference for communicative gesture. Therefore, we theorise that gesture might have played an important role in the evolution of language. 
Inspiring collaborators are Erin Hecht (Harvard University) and William Hopkins (MD Anderson).



​Podcast
For a quick and easy understanding of my PhD project with Adrien Meguerditchian, listen here to our interview in the Naked Scientist Podcast, or here to the eLife Science Podcast, n°80 ("language goes hand in hand with handedness")

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