Commonwealth Center of Excellence in Stroke
Faculty

Home

Faculty

Staff

Clinical Trials

Stroke Conferences

About Stroke

UK Hospital Stroke Center

Stroke-L List

Contact us

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging

Lee X. Blonder, Ph.D.

Professor of Behavioral Science, Neurology, and Anthropology, Faculty Associate of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and the Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence.

Dr. Blonder received a bachelor of arts degree in fine arts at Bard College, a master of arts degree in creative art from Hunter College, and her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania. She did postdoctoral training in the Department of Neurology at the University of Florida and joined the Commonwealth Center of Excellence in Stroke in 1989.

Dr. Blonder has had research awards from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Her research focuses on disorders of emotion and communication in patients with stroke and Parkinson's disease.

Dr. Blonder studies the effect stroke and other neurologic illnesses have on both verbal and nonverbal communication skills. Spoken words are only the most obvious aspect of a communication system that includes vocal inflection, volume, facial expression and body language. Brain injury can destroy both the ability to produce and to understand effective communication. Dr. Blonder's training as an anthropologist makes her uniquely qualified to study language deficits in a cultural context. Her laboratory is equipped with video and audio systems for recording and analyzing verbal and non-verbal communication.

Present and Past Research Grants

NIH R01MH078228. Neuroimaging Studies of Depression in Parkinson's Disease. 2006-2010

NIH P50 DC0388 (subcontract). Treatment of Aphasia and Related Disorders. 2000-2005

NSF IBN9604231. Neural Substrates of Facial and Lexical Emotion Using fMRI. 1997-2002

R29NS29082 Social Cognition Following Right Hemisphere Stroke. 1992-1998

Selected Publications

Ketterson TU, Glueckauf RL, Blonder LX, Gustafson DJ, Donovan NJ, Rodriquez AD, Pekich D, Ley C, Rothi LG. Reliability and validity of the functional outcome questionnaire for aphasia: a follow-up psychometric investigation. Rehabilitation Psychology 2008;53(2):215-223.

Blonder LX, Langer SL, Pettigrew LC, Garrity TF. The effects of stroke disability on spousal caregivers. NeuroRehabilitation 2007:22(2):85-92.

Raymer AM, Ciampitti M, Holliway B, Singletary F, Blonder LX, Ketterson T, Heilman KM, Rothi LJG. Lexical-semantic treatment for nound and verb retrieval impairments in aphasia. Neuropsychol Rehab 2007;17:244-270.

Blonder LX, Heilman KM, Ketterson T, Rosenbek J, Crosson B, Raymer S, Maher L,Glueckauf R, Rothi LG. Affective facial and lexical expression in aprosodic versus aphasic stroke patients. J Intl Neuropsychol Soc 2005;11:677-685.

Smith CD, Kryscio RJ, Schmitt FA, Lovell MA, Blonder LX, Rayens WS, Andersen AH. Longitudinal functional alterations in asymptomatic women at risk for Alzheimer's disease. J Neuroimagin 2005;115:271-7.

Heath RL Blonder LX. Spontaneous humor among right hemispher stroke survivors. Brain Lang 2005;93:2677-276.

Blonder LX, Smith CD, Davis CE, Kesler/West ML, Garrity TF, Avison MJ, Adnersen AH. Regional brain response to faces of humans and dogs. Cogn Br Res 2004;20:384-394.

Kesler/West ML, Andersen AH, Smith CD, Avison MJ, Davis CE, Kryscio RJ, Blonder LX. Neural substrates of facial emotion processing using fMRI. Cogn Br Res 2001;11:213-226.

Langer SL, Pettigrew LC, Wilson JF, Blonder LX. Channel-consistency following unilateral stroke: an examination of patient communication across verbal and nonverbal domains. Neuropsychologia 2000;38:337-344.

Blonder LX, Bowers D, Heilman KM. The role of the right hemisphere in emotional communication. Brain 1991;114:1115-1127.

Blonder LX, Gur RE, Gur RC. The effects of right and left hemiparkinsonism on prosody. Brain Lang 1989;36:193-207.