Research Interests
Shiree graduated from the University of Queensland's School of
Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in 2007 with a First Class
Honours Degree in Speech Pathology. After successfully completing
her degree, Shiree was awarded the 2007 Speech Pathology Australia
Student Award for outstanding academic achievement and clinical
excellence. In 2008, she was awarded an Australian Postgraduate
Award scholarship to commence a PhD investigating the
neurocognitive substrates of naming facilitation in individuals
with aphasia following stroke.
Her research interests include identification of the brain
mechanisms underlying unimpaired language processing and neurogenic
communication disorders (particularly post-stroke),
psycholinguistics, neuroplasticity and neurorehabilitation.
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Research Projects
Shiree's honours project involved an EEG event-related potential
study of direct and indirect semantic priming. The project explored
theories of cerebral hemispheric asymmetry for semantic processing
which suggest that the right hemisphere may be more sensitive to
weaker semantic relationships than the left hemisphere. This
project was conducted under the supervision of Dr Tony Angwin
(principal supervisor), Associate Professor David Copland and
Professor Helen Chenery.
Her current PhD research is exploring the neurocognitive
substrates of naming facilitation in individuals with aphasia, or
"how language therapy works in the brain following stroke". While
there is evidence to support the effectiveness of certain
treatments, not all individuals benefit and the underlying neural
and cognitive mechanisms responsible for positive outcomes remain
far from clear. As such, clinicians are currently unable to
accurately predict what type of treatment will be most effective
for which individuals. The project, therefore, aims to compare the
effectiveness of three naming treatments and considers how these
treatments have their effect at a cognitive and neural level using
fMRI technology. Shiree's PhD supervisory team includes Associate
Professor David Copland (principal supervisor), Dr Anthony Angwin,
Dr Katie McMahon and Professor Lyndsey Nickels (Macquarie
University).
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Key publications
Angwin, A., Heath, S., Copland, D. & Chenery, H. (2008). An
event-related potential study of direct and indirect semantic
priming in the cerebral hemispheres. Journal of Clinical EEG &
Neuroscience, July, 158. Abstract - 17th Annual Conference of the
Australasian Society for Psychophysiology (Brisbane, 7-9 December
2007).
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Contact details
Language Neuroscience Laboratory
Copland Research Group
University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research
Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital
HERSTON QLD 4029
AUSTRALIA
shiree.heath@uq.edu.au
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Funding acknowledgement
Australian Research Council
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Technique Expertise
Shiree has experience in psycholinguistics behavioural
paradigms, electroencephalography and neuroimaging, including
functional magnetic resonance imaging, diffusion imaging and
voxel-based morphometry.
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Collaborations
Dr Katie McMahon - University of Queensland Centre for Advanced
Imaging
Susanne Schnell - Department of Radiology, University Medical
Center Freiburg, Germany
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