# Training program in the neurology of language and neurodegenerative aphasias

> **NIH NIH K24** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO · 2022 · $188,829

## Abstract

This K24 grant renewal is requested to support the mentoring activities of Dr. Maria Luisa Gorno Tempini, a
behavioral neurologist and cognitive neuroscientist. Dr. Gorno Tempini is a leading researcher and clinician in
the fields of neurology and the neuroscience of language, with specific expertise in atypical neurodegenerative
diseases that present as speech and language disorders. She mentors a talented group of clinicians and
researchers to study and treat Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA) and investigate the neural basis of language.
Dr. Gorno Tempini has a proven track record of success in mentoring both clinicians and scientists in patient-
oriented research (POR) related to speech and language disorders.
The goals of this proposal are to support time for Dr. Gorno Tempini to mentor a growing number of increasingly
diverse clinicians and researchers interested in neurodegenerative language disorders, to extend her impact as
a mentor at UCSF, and to pursue novel lines of research in PPA. Leveraging the resources available at the
UCSF Memory and Aging Center (MAC), the Global Brain Health Institute, and the UCSF Clinical and
Translational Science Institute, she will mentor clinicians, faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and scientists with
particular attention to cultivating diversity, equity, and inclusion in her laboratory, the university, and the
profession at large. She will sustain her comprehensive mentoring system that features one-on-one mentoring,
supervision of clinicians in patient diagnosis and care, and group mentoring activities. She will update and extend
that system with opportunities for training with colleagues in speech and data science and a focus on mentoring
more advanced junior colleagues as emerging mentors themselves. Dr. Gorno Tempini's experience in basic
cognitive neuroscience and neurological methodologies and her increasingly nuanced leadership expertise
uniquely position her to benefit a diverse group of trainees.
The research project proposed here will develop automatic, efficient, and objective methods to measure speech
production in PPA. The study will apply acoustic analysis scripts and automatic speech recognition to five
minutes of audio recordings collected from 500 well-characterized PPA patients and employ dynamic speech
MRI to identify anatomical biomarkers of vocal tract movements corresponding to speech articulation errors. This
will lead to earlier detection of speech deficits; improved characterization of clinical syndromes; and more
detailed, objective, and efficient outcome measures to track progression and, in the future, response to
treatment. Machine learning analyses of acoustic measures and imaging data collected through other MAC
projects will provide novel tools for prediction of post-mortem pathology and new knowledge on the neural basis
of speech.
This grant will be instrumental in supporting the pursuit of Dr. Gorno Tempini's goals to mentor the next
generation of clinician scientists in ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10449271
- **Project number:** 5K24DC015544-07
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO
- **Principal Investigator:** MARIA LUISA GORNO TEMPINI
- **Activity code:** K24 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $188,829
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-07-01 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10449271

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10449271, Training program in the neurology of language and neurodegenerative aphasias (5K24DC015544-07). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10449271. Licensed CC0.

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