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Read the story of right hemisphere research and the Blue Devil (Duke Today)

Watch the short featuring Nana as the Blue Devil (YouTube)

Watch Jamila Minga explain her right hemisphere stroke research (YouTube)

Stroke can disrupt communication in ways that are easy to miss, particularly after righthemisphere strokes, where patients may speak fluently but struggle to use language appropriately in social settings. These hidden impairments can leave survivors isolated, misunderstood, and without proper support.

At Duke, undergraduate Nana Osaki helped bring new perspective to this challenge. As a neuroscience student in lab of speech-language pathologist Jamila Minga—and as Duke’s Blue Devil mascot, a role that relies entirely on gesture—Osaki studies how communication works beyond words. “I observe a lot more what people are doing with their hands, how they communicate,” Osaki said. “This comes from not only my research but also from being a mascot. And I think that has to do with when that sense has been taken away – you rely on your other senses, like sight or body language.”

Under the mentorship of Minga, Osaki studied right hemisphere stroke survivors, focusing on pragmatic language. “That means that those individuals may have challenges producing language that is appropriate for the communication context,” Minga explains. This research is supported by a federally funded K23 grant from the National Institutes of Health, which not only advances stroke science but also trains the next generation of researchers.

The goal is to link lesions visible on brain scans to patterns of language use in the hope that one day clinicians can predict language use disorders more effectively. Another key development of Minga’s work in the field is the creation of an ICD-10-CM diagnostic code for apragmatism, the technical term for the acquired pragmatic language difficulties that right hemisphere stroke survivors can experience. “It’s another way for us to acknowledge the very real language use impairments that right hemisphere survivors experience,” Minga said.

Through NIH support, Duke is pairing discovery with education—giving students like Osaki hands‑on research experience while improving care for stroke survivors.