Michele Diaz

Biography:

Language is a ubiquitous aspect of human life. Yet we are just beginning to understand the neural infrastructure that supports this complex social and cognitive function. Broadly, my research focuses on the relations between the brain and behavior. My lab has examined semantic and phonological aspects of language comprehension and production. Most recently I have been examining age-related differences in language. Specifically, this research project looks at neural factors that contribute to age-related retention (semantics) and decline (phonology) that have been observed in language production. We investigate the relations between structural factors (i.e., white matter integrity), functional activations, and behavior.

Recent Publications:

• Rossi, E. & Diaz, M.T. (In Press). How aging and bilingualism influence language production: theoretical and neural models. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism.
• Whitson, H.E., Chou, Y., Potter, G., Diaz, M.T., Chen, N., Lad, E., Johnson, M.A.*, Cousins, S., & Madden, D.J. (2015). Verbal fluency and resting state brain connectivity in age-related macular degeneration: A pilot study. Brain Connectivity, 5(2), 126-135. doi:10.1089/brain.2014.0277 PMCID: PMC3674832
• Diaz, M.T., Johnson, M.A.*, Burke, D.M., & Madden, D. J. (2014). Age-related differences in the neural bases of phonological and semantic processes. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. PMID: 24893737 NIHMSID: 605188 PMCID:   PMC4216243
• Johnson, M.A.*, Diaz, M.T., & Madden, D.J. (2014). Global versus tract-specific components of cerebral white matter integrity: Relation to adult age and perceptual-motor speed. Brain Structure & Function.NIHMSID: 620459, PMCID:  PMC4277942
• Madden, D.J., Parks, E.L., Davis, S.W., Diaz, M.T., Potter, G.G., Chou, Y.H., Chen, N.K., & Cabeza, R. (2014). Age mediation of fronto-parietal activation during visual feature search. Neuroimage, NIHMSID: 619637, Publ.ID: YNIMG11555, PMCID:  PMC4253678
• Diaz, M.T., Hogstrom, L.J.*, Zhuang, J.*, Voyvodic, J.T., Johnson, M.J.* & Camblin, C.C.*. (2014). The influence of written distractor words on brain activity during overt picture naming. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 8:167. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00167, PMID: 24715859 PMCID: PMC3970014
• Glover, G.H.,  Mueller, B.,  Van Erp, T., Liu, T.T., Greve, D., Voyvodic, J., Rasmussen, J., Turner, J.,  Brown, G.G., Keator, D.B., Calhoun, V.D., Lee, H.J., Ford, J., Diaz, M.T., O’Leary, D.S.,  Potkin, S.G., FBIRN. (2012). Function biomedical informatics research network recommendations for prospective multi-center functional neuroimaging studies. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 36 (1), 39-54 PMID: 22314879 PMCID: PMC3349791.
• Diaz, M.T. & Hogstrom, L.J.* (2011). The influence of context on hemispheric recruitment during metaphor processing. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(11), 3586-3597. PMID: 21568642 NIHMSID: 300129, PMCID: PMC3175018.
• Diaz, M.T., Barrett, K.T.*, & Hogstrom, L.J.* (2011). The influence of sentence novelty and figurativeness on brain activity. Neuropsychologia, 49 (3), 320-330. PMCID: PMC3034783
• Greve, D.N., Mueller, B.A., Liu, T., Turner, J.A., Potkin, S.G., Voyvodic, J.T., Diaz, M.T., Wallace, S., Yetter, E., Roach, B.J., Ford, J.M., Mathalon, D.H., Wible, C.G., & Glover, G. (2011). A novel method for quantifying scanner instability in fMRI. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, 65(4), 1053-61. PMID: 21121002 NIHMS: NIHMS240496 PMCID: PMC3117086
• Brown, G.G., Mathalon, D., Stern, H., Ford, J., Mueller, B., Greve, D., McCarthy, G., Voyvodic J., Glover, G., Diaz, M.T., Yetter, E., Ozyurt, B., Jorgensen, K.W., Wible, C., Turner, J., Thompson, W.K., Potkin, S., and the  FBIRN. (2011). Multisite reliability of cognitive BOLD data. Neuroimage, 54(3), 2163-75. PMCID: PMC3009557.

* indicates student collaborator