Prof. Michal Ben-Shachar

Unit
Linguistics
Rank
Senior Lecturer
Telephone
03-5318568
Email
michal.benshachar@gmail.com
Office
Bldg. 901 room 214
Personal Website
https://neurolingbiu.wordpress.com/
Fields of Interest
  • Neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics.
  • Language and reading systems in the brain.
  • Typical and atypical development of reading pathways. 
  • White matter pathways underlying morphological processing in Hebrew.
  • Orthographic processing in Hebrew, Arabic and English.
  • Dynamic changes in neural systems for language processing.
  • Developmental language impairments and their neural basis.
CV

Positions:

2015-16: Visiting Scholar, Stanford University (Psychology; Developmental and behavioral pediatrics)

2013: Senior lecturer with tenure, Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar Ilan University

2008-2012: Lecturer (tenure track), Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar Ilan University

2008-2014 (summers): Visiting Scholar, Stanford University

2007-2008 Research Associate, Psychology Department and Developmental and behavioral pediatrics, Stanford University

2004-2007 Postdoctoral fellow, Psychology Department, Stanford University

 

Education:

2005 PhD awarded by Tel Aviv University

1998 MA in Cognitive Psychology, Tel Aviv University

1992-1996 Undergraduate studies in the Interdisciplinary program for outstanding students, Tel Aviv University

 

 

Research
  • Language and reading systems in the brain.
  • White matter pathways underlying morphological processing in Hebrew.
  • The neural basis of adult stuttering, training effects.
  • Development of reading systems in the brain in children born premature
  • Dynamic changes in neural systems for language processing.
  • Developmental language impairments and their neural basis.
  • Orthographic processing in Hebrew, Arabic and English.
Courses
  • 37-522 Psycholinguistics
  • 37-511 Adult aphasia
  • 37-977 Acquired language and reading impairments
  • 37-877 Neurolinguistics and Psycholinguistics of Sentence Processing
  • 27-503 Brain imaging of language systems

 

Publications
  1. Kronfeld-Duenias, V., Amir, O., Ezrati-Vinacour, R., Civier, O. and Ben-Shachar, M. (2016). Dorsal and ventral language pathways in persistent developmental stuttering. Cortex 81, 79-92.
  2. Blecher, T., Tal, I. and Ben-Shachar, M. (2016). White matter microstructural properties correlate with sensorimotor synchronization abilities. NeuroImage 138, 1-12.
  3. Yablonski, M. and Ben-Shachar, M. (In Press). The Morpheme Interference Effect in Hebrew: a Generalization across the Verbal and Nominal Domains. The Mental Lexicon 11(2), 277-307.
  4. Travis, K.E., Ben-Shachar, M., Myall, N.J. and Feldman, H.M. (2016). Variations in the neurobiology of reading in children and adolescents born full term and preterm. NeuroImage: Clinical 11, 555-565.
  5. Halag-Milo, T., Stoppelman, N., Kronfeld-Duenias, V., Civier, O., Amir, O., Ezrati-Vinacour, R. and Ben-Shachar, M. (2016). Beyond production: Brain responses during speech perception in adults who stutter. NeuroImage: Clinical 11, 328–338.
  6. Travis, K.E., Adams, J.N., Ben-Shachar, M. and Feldman, H.M. (2015). Decreased and Increased Anisotropy along Major Cerebral White Matter Tracts in Preterm Children and Adolescents. PLOS One 10(11), e0142860.
  7. Civier, O., Kronfeld-Duenias, V., Amir, O., Ezrati, R., and Ben-Shachar, M. (2015). Reduced fractional anisotropy in the anterior corpus callosum is associated with reduced speech fluency in persistent developmental stuttering. Brain and Language 143, 20-31.
  8. Travis, K.E., Leitner, Y., Ben-Shachar, M., Yeom, K. and Feldman, H.M. (2015). Case Series: Fractional anisotropy profiles of the cerebellar peduncles in adolescents born preterm with ventricular dilation. Journal of Child Neurology 31(3), 321-7.
  9. Leitner, Y., Travis, K.E., Ben-Shachar, M., Yeom, K. and Feldman, H.M. (2015). Tract profiles of the cerebellar white matter pathways in children and adolescents. Cerebellum 14(6),613-623.
  10. Kronfeld-Duenias, V., Amir, O., Ezrati-Vinacour, R., Civier, O., Ben-Shachar, M. (2016). The frontal aslant tract underlies speech fluency in persistent developmental stuttering. Brain Structure and Function 221(1), 365-381.
  11. Travis, K.T., Leitner, Y., Feldman, H. and Ben-Shachar, M. (2015). Cerebellar white matter pathways are associated with reading skills in children and adolescents. Human Brain Mapping 36(4), 1536-53.
  12. Ossmy, O., Ben-Shachar, M. and Mukamel, R. (2014). Decoding letter position in word reading. Cortex 59, 74-83.
  13. Dotan Ben-Soussan, T., Avirame, K., Glicksohn, J., Goldstein, A. and Ben-Shachar, M. (2014). Changes in cerebellar activity and interhemispheric coherence accompany improved reading performance following Quadrato motor training. Frontiers in systems neuroscience Vol. 8, Article 81.
  14. Stoppelman, N., Harpaz, T. and Ben-Shachar, M. (2013). Do not throw out the baby with the bath water: Choosing an effective baseline for language localization. Brain and Behavior 3(3), 211-22.
  15. Yeatman, J.D., Dougherty, R.F., Ben-Shachar, M. and Wandell, B.A. (2012). Dual process account of the joint development of white matter and reading skills. PNAS 109(44), E3045-53.
  16. Ben-Shachar, M., Dougherty, R.F., Deutsch, G.K., and Wandell, B.A. (2011). The development of cortical sensitivity to visual word forms. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(9):2387-99.
  17. Yeatman, J.D., Dougherty, R.F., Rykhlevskaia, E., Sherbondy, A.J., Deutsch, G.K., Wandell, B.A. and Ben-Shachar, M. (2011). Anatomical Properties of the Arcuate Fasciculus Predict Phonological and Reading Skills in Children. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 23(11):3304-17.
  18. Yeatman, J.D., Ben-Shachar, M., Glover, G.H. and Feldman, H. (2010). Individual differences in auditory sentence comprehension in children: An exploratory event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation. Brain and Language 114(2):72-9.
  19. Andrews, J.S., Ben-Shachar, M., Yeatman, J.D., Flom, L.L., Luna, B., Feldman, H.M. (2010). Reading performance correlates with white-matter properties in preterm and term children. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology 52(6): 94-100.
  20. Tsang, J., Dougherty, R.F., Deutsch, G.K., Wandell, B.A. and Ben-Shachar, M. (2009). Frontoparietal white matter diffusion properties predict mental arithmetic skills in children. PNAS, 106(52):22546-51.
  21. Yeatman, J.D., Ben-Shachar, M. and Feldman, H. (2009). Using Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Fiber Tracking to Characterize Diffuse Perinatal White Matter Injury: A Case Report. Journal of Child Neurology 24(7):795-800.
  22. Rauschecker, A.M., Deutsch, G.K., Ben-Shachar, M., Schwartzman, A., Dougherty, R.F. (2009). Reading impairment in a patient with missing arcuate fasciculus. Neuropsychologia 47(1):180-94.
  23. Sherbondy, A. J., Dougherty, R. F., Ben-Shachar, M., Napel, S., & Wandell, B. A. (2008). ConTrack: Finding the most likely pathways between brain regions using diffusion tractography. Journal of Vision 8(9): 1-16.
  24. Kipervasser, S., Palti, D., Neufeld, M.Y., Ben Shachar, M., Andelman, F., Fried, I., Korczyn, A.D., Hendler, T. (2008). Possible remote functional reorganization in left temporal lobe epilepsy. Acta Neurologica Scandinavica, 117(5):324-31.
  25. Ben-Shachar, M., Dougherty, R.F., Deutsch, G.K., and Wandell, B.A. (2007). Contrast responsivity in MT+ correlates with phonological awareness and reading measures in children. NeuroImage 37(4):1396-1406.
  26. Ben-Shachar, M., Dougherty, R. F. and Wandell, B. A. (2007). White matter pathways in reading. Current Opinions in Neurobiology 17: 258-270.
  27. Ben-Shachar, M., Dougherty, R. F., Deutsch, G. K., and Wandell, B. A. (2007). Differential sensitivity to words and shapes in ventral occipito-temporal cortex. Cerebral Cortex 17, 1604-11.
  28. Dougherty, R.F., Ben-Shachar, M., Deutsch, D.K., Hernandez, A., Fox, G.R. and Wandell, B.A. (2007). Temporal callosal pathway diffusivity predicts phonological skills in children. PNAS 104, 8556-61.
  29. Palti, D., Ben-Shachar, M., Hendler, T. And Hadar, U. (2007). The cortical correlates of grammatical category differences: An fMRI study of nouns and verbs. Human Brain Mapping 28, 303-14.
  30. Dougherty, R.F., Ben-Shachar, M., Deutsch, G., Potanina, P., Bammer, R., and Wandell, B.A. (2005). Occipital-Callosal pathways in children: Validation and atlas development. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1064, 98-112.
  31. Dougherty, R. F., Ben-Shachar, M., Bammer, R., Brewer, A. A. and Wandell, B. A. (2005). Functional organization of human occipital-callosal fiber tracts. PNAS 102, 7350-7355.
  32. Ben-Shachar, M., Palti, D. and Grodzinsky, Y. (2004). Neural correlates of syntactic movement: Converging evidence from two fMRI experiments. NeuroImage 21, 1320-1336.
  33. Ben-Shachar, M., Hendler, T., Kahn, I., Ben-Bashat, D. and Grodzinsky, Y. (2003). The neural reality of syntactic transformations – evidence from fMRI. Psychological Science 14(5), 433-440.

Last Updated Date : 22/05/2022