Language Mapping in the Operating Room: HSE Neurolinguists Assist Surgeons in Complex Brain Surgery
Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain took part in brain surgery on a patient who had been seriously wounded in the SMO. A shell fragment approximately five centimetres long entered through the eye socket, penetrated the cranial cavity, and became lodged in the brain, piercing the temporal lobe responsible for language. Surgeons at the Burdenko Main Military Clinical Hospital removed the foreign object while the patient remained conscious. During the operation, neurolinguists conducted language tests to ensure that language function was preserved.
Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain, Maria Protopova (Prokopyeva) and Irina Provlotskaya, worked in the operating room as part of a multidisciplinary team and administered standardised language tasks during direct cortical stimulation. During the operation, the patient was asked to name objects shown in pictures and to repeat pseudowords. These tasks help identify brain regions that are critically important for language and allow clinicians to detect in a timely manner any changes that may occur during the intervention.
Research Assistant, Center for Language and Brain
'If a patient begins to make errors while performing language tasks, this may indicate that the stimulation is affecting areas critical for language. Once these areas are identified, surgeons avoid them during subsequent stages of the operation.'
In this case, the procedure differed in that the patient remained conscious throughout the entire intervention, including the stage of opening the skull. More commonly, during such operations, the patient is kept under anaesthesia until cortical stimulation and language testing begin, after which they are placed back under anaesthesia.
Junior Research Fellow, Center for Language and Brain
'The language testing procedure was generally structured in the same way as in standard awake surgeries, such as the removal of an epileptic lesion or a mass, but in this case it was particularly important to monitor language continuously. We used object-naming tasks during cortical stimulation to identify language-related areas so that surgeons could bypass them during resection. Pseudoword repetition was used directly during the removal of the foreign body to ensure timely detection of any language impairments that might arise while manipulating tissue near the language pathways.'
The HSE Center for Language and Brain has been developing a clinical focus and actively collaborating with leading hospitals and medical centres in Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, and other cities in Russia, as well as abroad. This collaboration helps introduce modern neurolinguistic methods into clinical practice, increasing the safety of neurosurgical interventions and improving the precision with which functionally significant brain areas are preserved.
Director, Center for Language and Brain
'Tests developed by the centre’s specialists for intraoperative language mapping—including object and action naming from pictures and other standardised language tasks—have been successfully used in awake surgeries for nearly 10 years. It is essential for us that these techniques function not only as research tools but also as clinical standards, effectively applied in neurosurgical practice.'
See also:
Resource Race and Green Transition: Three Unexpected Conclusions from Foresight Centre’s Research on Climate and Poverty
Beneath the surface of green energy—which most people associate with solar panels, electric vehicles, and reduced CO2 emissions—lies a complex web of geopolitical interests, international inequality, and resource constraints. Researchers from the Laboratory for Science and Technology Studies (LST) at the HSE ISSEK Foresight Centre have published a series of articles in leading international journals on hidden and overt conflicts surrounding critically important metals and minerals, as well as related processes in the energy sector.
Immersion in Second Language Environment Influences Bilinguals’ Perception of Emotions
Researchers at the Cognitive Health and Intelligence Centre at the HSE Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience have discovered how bilingual individuals process emotional words in their native (first) and non-native (second) languages. It was found that the link between word meaning and bodily sensations is weaker in a second language than in a first language. However, the more a person is immersed in a language environment, the smaller this difference becomes. The article has been published in Language, Cognition and Neuroscience.
HSE Students Among Winners of Yandex High-Tech Startup Accelerator
Yandex has announced the results of its Yandex AI Startup Lab accelerator, whose final round featured 12 IT projects. Over the course of three months, their creators—students and young entrepreneurs—worked alongside the company’s experts to develop their products. Four startups in digital marketing, medicine, and robotics were named the best, with their teams receiving cash prizes and cloud resource grants. Among them was Gradius, a startup founded by students from HSE University.
Researchers Find More Effective Approach to Revealing Majorana Zero Modes in Superconductors
An international team of researchers, including physicists from HSE MIEM, has demonstrated that nonmagnetic impurities can help more accurately reveal Majorana zero modes—quantum states considered promising building blocks for quantum computing. The researchers found that these impurities shift the energy levels that typically obscure the Majorana signal, while leaving the mode itself largely unaffected, thereby making its spectral peak more distinct. The study has been published in Research.
New Development by HSE Scientists Helps Design Reliable Electronics Faster at a Lower Cost
Scientists from HSE MIEM have developed a new approach to modelling electrothermal processes in high-power electronic circuits on printed circuit boards (PCB). The method allows engineers to quickly and accurately predict how electronic components heat up during operation, helping prevent overheating and potential failures. The results have been published in Russian Microelectronics.
The Future of Cardiogenetics Lies in Artificial Intelligence
Researchers from the AI and Digital Science Institute at the HSE Faculty of Computer Science have developed a program capable of analysing regions of the human genome that were previously inaccessible for accurate interpretation in genetic testing. The program adapts large generative AI (GenAI) models for cardiogenetics to predict how specific mutations affect the function of individual genes.
HSE Researchers: Young Russians Have Sufficient Knowledge About Money but Lack Money Management Skills
Adolescents and young adults in Russia today are well versed in financial terminology: they know what bank cards, loans, interest rates, and online payments are. However, as researchers at HSE University have found, real money-management skills remain poorly developed among most young people. The study ‘Financial Literacy, Financial Culture, and Financial Autonomy of Youth’ has been published in Monitoring of Public Opinion: Economic and Social Changes.
Why Weaker Competitors Give Up—and How to Keep Them in the Game
Anastasia Antsygina, Assistant Professor at HSE University’s Faculty of Economic Sciences, has developed a prize distribution model that maximises competitor engagement. She proposed revising the traditional ‘winner-takes-all’ approach and, in certain cases, offering a small reward even to those who have lost. According to her, this could increase participant motivation and make the competition more intense. The findings of her research were published in the Economic Theory journal.
HSE Researchers Compile Scientific Database for Studying Children’s Eating Habits
The database created at HSE University can serve as a foundation for studying children’s eating habits. This is outlined in the study ‘The Influence of Age, Gender, and Social-Role Factors on Children’s Compliance with Age-Based Nutritional Norms: An Experimental Study Using the Dish-I-Wish Web Application.’ The work has been carried out as part of the HSE Basic Research Programme and was presented at the XXVI April International Academic Conference named after Evgeny Yasin.
New Foresight Centre Study Identifies the Most Destructive Global Trends for Humankind
A team of researchers from the HSE International Research and Educational Foresight Centre has examined how global trends affect the quality of human life—from life expectancy to professional fulfilment. The findings of the study titled ‘Human Capital Transformation under the Influence of Global Trends’ were published in Foresight.