The Centre for Research on Brain, Language and Music – CRBLM – is a strategic research group with a unique interdisciplinary focus on language, music, and their intersection. Language and music are specialized human modes of communication, which at their core, involve perceptually discrete elements organized into hierarchically structured sequences that give rise to different degrees of meaning. While each domain individually has long been of interest to basic and applied neuroscience, and investigated using an array of behavioral techniques, neuroimaging tools and theoretical perspectives, the comparative brain-behavior relationship between language and music is only starting to be studied in earnest.
Our mission is to be a novel and innovative environement of integration for researchers with interdependent but complementary expertise from diverse disciplines focused on the unique neurobiological and social endowments of language and music.
Our work encompasses studies of human capacities for language and music, animal models of sub-processes, and computational approaches that make theoretical and empirical advances.
The CRBLM comprises a unique strategic cluster aimed at organizing, within Quebec and Canada, a significant research focus on the neuroscience of language and music that is unparalleled anywhere in the world.
Bringing together a critical mass of researchers with complementary interests and expertise in brain, language, and music, both human and animal models of their function and dysfunction, the CRBLM represents the largest concentration of basic and applied research internationally on this interdisciplinary enterprise.
Our distinguished and diverse membership, our extensive and state-of-the art research facilities, and the strong interaction of researchers at CRBLM and affiliated research facilities maintain and further assert our role as the central hub for basic and applied research dedicated to the organization, function and dysfunction of the nervous system in language and music.
Our global objective is to foster a research and training environment that supports innovative cognitive, cultural, and neuroscientific approaches that gather unique insights into the organization of the human brain for speech, language, music and communication.
Our mandate is to strengthen existing research in each domain and to generate cross-domain interactions and collaborations through
- research initiatives and training activities,
- workshops and symposia,
- continued development of synergistic collaborations with provincial, national and international institutions and research centers, and
- community outreach and dissemination of knowledge through public lectures, podcasts, international conferences and media activities.