Exciting news came to the Brain, Language, and Behaviour Laboratory before Christmas 2025 in the form of a successful funding award to develop a new scientific and clinical tool about language in the brain.
The award, for a project entitled Advancing Neuro-Oncology Care, goes towards the continuation of a systematic review into the effects of neurostimulation techniques on language processing. It represents support for an international collaboration between the laboratory and the University of Leipzig, with Professor Gesa Hartwigsen and Dr Philipp Kuhnke (also members of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences) supporting the project.
Theproject has two main ambitions: to define which sub-processes of language have been shown to be influenced by brain stimulation, and to create an online database neurosurgeons can use to plan awake craniotomies. Funding from the British Council’s Going Global Partnerships programme will support a 2-day research exchange visit for the UWE team to Germany, as well as a reciprocal 7-day training visit for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows, and a Researcher Connect training for Tom and Sonia, organised by the British Council.
Delighted to kickstart the project in 2026, the core team had a wonderful time meeting, exchanging ideas, and planning for the future of this venture on 15th January. See our smiling faces below!
Meeting lead, Tom Williamson, is joined by the wider research team, including the Lab leads, Neil Barua and Anna Piasecki, and some of its members, Kris Kinsey and Sonia Mariotti, as well as experts in other psychology fields, Jemma Sedgmont, Naomi Heffer, Gesa Hartwigsen, and Philipp Kuhnke. The project is also supported by our Lab’s former Research Associates, Lydia Wiernik and Eimear McKnight, and Antonia Vogts, a PhD student in surgery at the University of Cambridge.
When do you know that your work truly matters? Well, for us there have been a few key moments that keep us going and here are a select few.
For me, one of the most powerful moments is when a patient expresses their gratitude for the supportive care they’ve received. We are limited to what we can control or influence in the surgical space but we can make sure that the tools we create to support a surgery are of the best possible quality and increase the chances of a positive outcome for a patient. On one particular occasion, our team has been involved in the creation of rare bilingual testing material to ensure that the languages that were important to the patient remained intact following their surgery. The patient’s appreciation of our efforts spoke volumes. Not much can beat that.
Instilling practice-based reflection and inspiring other practitioners or researchers can be another signal that your work matters. We are very lucky in both respects. On the back of our recent symposium (explored in more detail in this post), we received some wonderful feedback that speaks to the impact of our event on clinical practitioners involved in awake brain surgeries, which you can see summarised in the word cloud as part of our symposium infographic. Similarly, our work tends to attract undergraduate and postgraduate students from different disciplines and countries who are keen to get involved in the work we do.
And finally, every now and then a more ‘official’ recognition is also good for the soul and team spirit. Following the wonderful award Hajira received last month at the Society of British Neurological Surgeons’ Meeting (see this post), this time our entire team was honoured and absolutely thrilled by having received an award from the North Bristol NHS Trust for our Outstanding Collaboration. While a surprising and uplifting moment for the team, the awards ceremony itself was equally an incredibly humbling experience, as we joined many special people working in the NHS, witnessing their incredible contributions to serving our communities. This memory will certainly last forever.
The Brain, Language and Behaviour Lab team celebrating the receipt of the Outstanding Collaboration Award from North Bristol NHS Trust. From left to right: Madeleine Farrow, Molly Cree, Anna Piasecki, Margaret Newson, Sonia Mariotti, Tom Williamson and Kris Kinsey (missing Neil Barua & Hajira Mumtaz on the night!).
Given the multidisciplinarity of our work and team, we recently had two projects accepted to be presented at the Society of British Neurological Surgeons’ (SBNS) 2025 Conference. The SBNS is the UK’s leading professional body for neurosurgery and its biannual meetings bring together surgeons, clinicians, researchers, and industry leaders from across the UK and abroad to share cutting-edge developments in neurosurgical science and clinical practice.
This year’s conference was held in Bristol and featured a diverse scientific programme spanning Neil’s home discipline of neuro-oncology, cranial and spinal surgery, neurovascular and paediatric neurosurgery, and neuropsychology. While this wide-ranging programme reflected the multifaceted nature of the profession, modern brain research and patient care, it also offered a perfect opportunity to shine a light on the work we have been doing in our Lab.
As such, Sonia had the opportunity to showcase the findings of our UK-wide survey (described in more detail here), and Hajra presented BOATIM, the world’s first standardised and clinically tested resource for English-language object and action naming, that is now freely available to clinicians through our open-access platform (accessible via this link). Hajira’s session drew considerable interest from neurosurgeons and clinicians attending the conference, many of whom expressed enthusiasm about incorporating BOATIM into their own intraoperative protocols. Hajira’s presentation was awarded the SBNS 2025 Best Oncology Presentation, acknowledging the originality and clinical importance of this work within the neuro-oncological field.
To round things off, Anna delivered the prestigious Sir Hugh Cairns Lecture, an invited plenary that closed the final day of the conference. Her talk took the audience on a journey through several decades of psycholinguistic research, tracing how our understanding of the brain’s language system has evolved — from early debates about whether bilingualism could “rot the brain” to contemporary discussions on how human language processing compares to large language models (LLMs).
The lecture highlighted how psycholinguistic evidence continues to inform modern neurosurgical practice, especially in the context of awake brain surgery, where precise knowledge of language organisation in the brain is essential for preserving communication during tumour resection. The lecture took an engaging and interdisciplinary perspective, which resonated strongly with the audience, reinforcing the vital role of language science in advancing clinical innovation and patient care.
The SBNS conference reinforced the crucial role of cross-disciplinary collaboration in advancing both surgical techniques and our understanding of the brain. We are proud that the BLB Lab’s research was showcased alongside the UK’s most innovative neurosurgical work — and even more honoured that our contribution was recognised with an award.
The insights and connections gained at SBNS 2025 will continue to guide our work as we develop and refine clinically grounded, linguistically informed tools for use in awake brain surgery. We look forward to returning to future SBNS meetings and continuing to strengthen the dialogue between neurosurgery, cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics.
Sir Hugh Cairns LectureConference dinner with Venkat IyerDigital poster of our survey study, led by Sonia Mariotti.
