Brambati Simona
Contact information
simona.maria.brambati@umontreal.ca
Biography
Dr. Simona Maria Brambati is a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology at Université de Montréal and a regular researcher at the Research Centre of the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal (CRIUGM), where she has led her laboratory since 2011. Trained in cognitive neuropsychology and neuroimaging, she earned a master’s and Ph.D. in Molecular Medicine from the Università Vita-Salute San Raffaele in Milan. She completed two postdoctoral fellowships in neuroimaging and cognitive science at the University of California, San Francisco, and at Université de Montréal.
Dr. Brambati currently holds the Courtois Chair in Fundamental Research (Tier III) and has received several prestigious honors, including the Louise Rousselle Trottier Award of Excellence (Heart and Stroke Foundation), the Teaching Excellence Award from Université de Montréal, and Junior 1 and Junior 2 FRQS Research Scholar awards. She was also nominated as a young scientific leader to represent Quebec at the World Dementia Council.
She has led or collaborated on numerous funded projects over the past decade, supported by the CIHR, FRQ, NIH, SSHRC, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Courtois Foundation, CFI, and the Alzheimer Society of Canada. These projects focus on language impairments associated with neurodegeneration and stroke, sex-based differences in the brain’s language network, and mechanisms of brain plasticity related to aging and recovery.
Dr. Brambati is also deeply involved in knowledge translation, working with organizations such as the Quebec Aphasia Association and training a large cohort of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in interdisciplinary research.
Research interests
Dr. Brambati’s research explores the neural basis of language and the effects of aging and brain lesions (e.g., stroke, neurodegenerative disease) on linguistic abilities. Her work is structured around three main axes:
- Characterization of language disorders in post-stroke aphasia and neurodegenerative conditions using advanced neuroimaging tools (e.g., MRI, functional connectivity).
- Investigation of brain plasticity and compensatory mechanisms that help maintain or recover language functions in aging or after brain injury.
- Development of clinical and technological tools for assessment and intervention, including telehealth rehabilitation, automated discourse analysis, and individualized brain modeling.
Her program is highly interdisciplinary, combining psychology, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and linguistics, with a strong emphasis on clinical and social impact.
Keywords: neuroimaging, aphasia, cognition and language, aging, brain plasticity, stroke, neurodegeneration, MRI, functional recovery, knowledge translation.
