Dr. Amy Margolis

The Environment, Brain, and Behavior (EBB) Lab for Developmental Visual-Spatial and Learning Disorders is located in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. Directed by Dr. Amy Margolis, the EBB lab studies the neurobiology of Non-Verbal Learning Disorder and how exposure to neurotoxic chemicals may affect neurodevelopment and manifest as learning and social problems. The EBB Lab uses neuroimaging to identify biomarkers of exposure to neurotoxicants and aid in the development of prevention and intervention programs to improve children's health outcomes.

Prof. Edmund Wascher / Dr. Laura-Isabelle Klatt

We are seeking to fill a fully funded PhD position (75% TV-L 13 state employees salary scheme) in cognitive neuroscience. The successful applicant will contribute to a project, investigating selective attention and working memory processes in a multisensory context. In particular, we are interested in how the auditory and the visual system interact during the deployment of attention in multisensory environments and how audio-visual information is integrated. To answer those research questions, we primarily use the EEG in combination with cutting edge analysis methods (e.g., multivariate pattern classification). Beyond that, the application of eye-tracking or (functional) MRI is possible within the project. Your responsibilities will include conducting (EEG-) experiments, data analysis, preparation of manuscripts for publication in peer-reviewed journals, as well as presentation of scientific results at (inter-)national conferences. Official job ad: https://www.ifado.de/ifadoen/careers/current-job-offers/#job3

Chapman University Brain Institute

We are seeking multiple post-bac research assistants with our projects.

Dr. Ziad Nahas

Dr. Ziad Nahas (Interventional Psychiatry Lab) in the University of Minnesota Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is seeking an outstanding candidate for a postdoctoral position to conduct and analyze the effects of neuromodulation on brain activity in mood disorders. Candidates should be passionate about advancing knowledge in the area of translational research of depressive disorders and other mental health conditions with a focus on invasive and non-invasive brain stimulation treatments. The position is available June 1, 2023, and funding is available for at least two years.

Dr. Ziad Nahas

Dr. Ziad Nahas (Interventional Psychiatry Lab) in the University of Minnesota Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is seeking an outstanding candidate for a postdoctoral position to conduct and analyze the effects of neuromodulation on brain activity in mood disorders. Candidates should be passionate about advancing knowledge in the area of translational research of depressive disorders and other mental health conditions with a focus on invasive and non-invasive brain stimulation treatments. The position is available June 1, 2023, and funding is available for at least two years.

Sahar Moghimi

The consortium of the projects aims to evaluate the development of rhythm perception starting from the third trimester of gestation into infancy, and the impact of early musical interventions in the NICU on preterm infants’ development. In these cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, we will evaluate the development of auditory rhythm processing capacities with EEG, and behavioral protocols. The project consortium involves four academic partners with complementary expertise in early neurodevelopment, cognitive neurosciences of music, neural data processing (in particular EEG), and music analysis. The aim is to put together a cross-disciplinary team that together covers the following methods: protocol design and implementation, EEG signal processing, behavioral studies, video analysis, statistics, machine learning.

Dr Andrej Bicanski

This project involves modelling the staggered development and the decline with age of spatial coding in the mammalian brain, as well as data analysis of single neuron recordings. The position is based at Newcastle University, UK, with a rotation in the lab of Prof. Colin Lever in Durham, UK. The project is fully funded for 4 years by the BBSRC. Both international and UK students can apply, and fees are covered.

Maxime Carrière

The ERC Advanced Grant “Material Constraints Enabling Human Cognition (MatCo)” at the Freie Universität Berlin aims to build network models of the human brain that mimic neurocognitive processes involved in language, communication and cognition. A main strategy is to use neural network models constrained by neuroanatomical and neurophysiological features of the human brain in order to explain aspects of human cognition. To this end, neural network simulations are performed and evaluated in neurophysiological and neurometabolic experiments. This neurocomputational and experimental research targets novel explanations of human language and cognition on the basis of neurobiological principles. In the MatCo project, 3 positions are currently available: 1 full time position for a Scientific Researcher at the postdoctoral level Fixed-term (until 30.9.2025), Salary Scale 13 TV-L FU ID: WiMi_MatCo100_08-2022, 2 part time positions (65%) for Scientific Researchers at the predoctoral level Fixed-term (until 30.9.2025), Salary Scale 13 TV-L FU ID: WiMi_MatCo65_08-2022

Shu-Chen Li

The Chair of Lifespan Developmental Neuroscience investigates neurocognitive mechanisms underlying perceptual, cognitive, and motivational development across the lifespan. The main themes of our research are neurofunctional mechanisms underlying lifespan development of memory, cognitive control, reward processing, decision making, and multisensory perception. We also pursue applied research to study effects of behavioral intervention, non-invasive brain stimulation, or digital technologies in enhancing functional plasticity for individuals of difference ages. We utilize a broad range of neurocognitive (e.g., EEG, fNIRs, fMRI, tDCS) and computational methods. The lab has several testing rooms and is equipped with multiple EEG (64-channel and 32-channel) and fNIRs systems, as well as eye-tracking and virtual-reality devices. The MRI scanner (3T) and TMS-device can be accessed through the university’s NeuroImaging Center. TUD is a university of excellence supported by the DFG, which offers outstanding research opportunities. Researchers in this chair are involved in large research consortium and cluster, such as the DFG SFB 940 „Volition and Cognitive Control“ and DFG EXC 2050 „Tactile Internet with Human-in-the-Loop“.

Zoran Tiganj

The College of Arts and Sciences and the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington invite applications for three tenured Associate Professor positions in one or more of the following areas: human intelligence, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to begin in Fall 2024 or after. Appointments will be in one or more departments, including Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Informatics, and Psychological and Brain Sciences. The positions are part of a new initiative that aims to transform our understanding of human and artificial intelligence, centered around the new Mind Brain Machine Quadrangle and the Luddy Artificial Intelligence Center. IU has long been an international leader in research on cognition across humans, animals, and artificial systems, and how intelligence manifests in embodied cognition. These hires build on existing strengths to position IU at the forefront of new research innovations in our understanding of human and animal cognition, the development of intelligent computing technologies, and the use of machine learning applied to a wide range of phenomena.

Matéo Mahaut

The primary project objective is to identify individual cognitive profiles using advanced artificial intelligence techniques. Beyond performance differences, we will consider personality traits, lifestyle factors, and emotional regulation, among others, to more precisely define characteristic cognitive profiles and identify their cerebral substrates.

Decoding ketamine: Neurobiological mechanisms underlying its rapid antidepressant efficacy

Unlike traditional monoamine-based antidepressants that require weeks to exert effects, ketamine alleviates depression within hours, though its clinical use is limited by side effects. While ketamine was initially thought to work primarily through NMDA receptor (NMDAR) inhibition, our research reveals a more complex mechanism. We demonstrate that NMDAR inhibition alone cannot explain ketamine's sustained antidepressant effects, as other NMDAR antagonists like MK-801 lack similar efficacy. Instead, the (2R,6R)-hydroxynorketamine (HNK) metabolite appears critical, exhibiting antidepressant effects without ketamine's side effects. Paradoxically, our findings suggest an inverted U-shaped dose-response relationship where excessive NMDAR inhibition may actually impede antidepressant efficacy, while some level of NMDAR activation is necessary. The antidepressant actions of ketamine and (2R,6R)-HNK require AMPA receptor activation, leading to synaptic potentiation and upregulation of AMPA receptor subunits GluA1 and GluA2. Furthermore, NMDAR subunit GluN2A appears necessary and possibly sufficient for these effects. This research establishes NMDAR-GluN2A activation as a common downstream effector for rapid-acting antidepressants, regardless of their initial targets, offering promising directions for developing next-generation antidepressants with improved efficacy and reduced side effects.

Imagining and seeing: two faces of prosopagnosia

Feedback-induced dispositional changes in risk preferences

Contrary to the original normative decision-making standpoint, empirical studies have repeatedly reported that risk preferences are affected by the disclosure of choice outcomes (feedback). Although no consensus has yet emerged regarding the properties and mechanisms of this effect, a widespread and intuitive hypothesis is that repeated feedback affects risk preferences by means of a learning effect, which alters the representation of subjective probabilities. Here, we ran a series of seven experiments (N= 538), tailored to decipher the effects of feedback on risk preferences. Our results indicate that the presence of feedback consistently increases risk-taking, even when the risky option is economically less advantageous. Crucially, risk-taking increases just after the instructions, before participants experience any feedback. These results challenge the learning account, and advocate for a dispositional effect, induced by the mere anticipation of feedback information. Epistemic curiosity and regret avoidance may drive this effect in partial and complete feedback conditions, respectively.

There’s more to timing than time: P-centers, beat bins and groove in musical microrhythm

How does the dynamic shape of a sound affect its perceived microtiming? In the TIME project, we studied basic aspects of musical microrhythm, exploring both stimulus features and the participants’ enculturated expertise via perception experiments, observational studies of how musicians produce particular microrhythms, and ethnographic studies of musicians’ descriptions of microrhythm. Collectively, we show that altering the microstructure of a sound (“what” the sound is) changes its perceived temporal location (“when” it occurs). Specifically, there are systematic effects of core acoustic factors (duration, attack) on perceived timing. Microrhythmic features in longer and more complex sounds can also give rise to different perceptions of the same sound. Our results shed light on conflicting results regarding the effect of microtiming on the “grooviness” of a rhythm.

Ecological Psychology Today

Cognitive Computational Neuroscience 2023

CCN is an annual conference that serves as a forum for cognitive science, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence researchers dedicated to understanding the computations that underlie complex behavior.

Workplace Experiences of LGBTQIA+ Academics in Psychology, Psychiatry, and Neuroscience

In this webinar, Dr David Pagliaccio discusses the findings of his recent pre-print on workplace bias and discrimination faced by LGBTQIA+ brain scientists in the US.

Targeting Maladaptive Emotional Memories to Treat Mental Health Disorders: Insights from Rodent Models

Maladaptive emotional memories contribute to the persistence of numerous mental health disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Using rodent behavioural models of the psychological processes relevant to these disorders, it is possible to identify potential treatment targets for the development of new therapies, including those based upon disrupting the reconsolidation of maladaptive emotional memories. Using examples from rodent models relevant to multiple mental health disorders, this talk will consider some of the opportunities and challenges that this approach provides.

Spatial matching tasks for insect minds: relational similarity in bumblebees

Understanding what makes human unique is a fundamental research drive for comparative psychologists. Cognitive abilities such as theory of mind, cooperation or mental time travel have been considered uniquely human. Despite empirical evidence showing that animals other than humans are able (to some extent) of these cognitive achievements, findings are still heavily contested. In this context, being able to abstract relations of similarity has also been considered one of the hallmarks of human cognition. While previous research has shown that other animals (e.g., primates) can attend to relational similarity, less is known about what invertebrates can do. In this talk, I will present a series of spatial matching tasks that previously were used with children and great apes and that I adapted for use with wild-caught bumblebees. The findings from these studies suggest striking similarities between vertebrates and invertebrates in their abilities to attend to relational similarity.

Investigating semantics above and beyond language: a clinical and cognitive neuroscience approach

The ability to build, store, and manipulate semantic representations lies at the core of all our (inter)actions. Combining evidence from cognitive neuroimaging and experimental neuropsychology, I study the neurocognitive correlates of semantic knowledge in relation to other cognitive functions, chiefly language. In this talk, I will start by reviewing neuroimaging findings supporting the idea that semantic representations are encoded in distributed yet specialized cortical areas (1), and rapidly recovered (2) according to the requirement of the task at hand (3). I will then focus on studies conducted in neurodegenerative patients, offering a unique window on the key role played by a structurally and functionally heterogeneous piece of cortex: the anterior temporal lobe (4,5). I will present pathological, neuroimaging, cognitive, and behavioral data illustrating how damages to language-related networks can affect or spare semantic knowledge as well as possible paths to functional compensation (6,7). Time permitting, we will discuss the neurocognitive dissociation between nouns and verbs (8) and how verb production is differentially impacted by specific language impairments (9).

Bridging clinical and cognitive neuroscience together to investigate semantics, above and beyond language

We will explore how neuropsychology can be leveraged to directly test cognitive neuroscience theories using the case of frontotemporal dementias affecting the language network. Specifically, we will focus on pathological, neuroimaging, and cognitive data from primary progressive aphasia. We will see how they can help us investigate the reading network, semantic knowledge organisation, and grammatical categories processing. Time permitting, the end of the talk will cover the temporal dynamics of semantic dimensions recovery and the role played by the task.

The future of neuropsychology will be open, transdiagnostic, and FAIR - why it matters and how we can get there

Cognitive neuroscience has witnessed great progress since modern neuroimaging embraced an open science framework, with the adoption of shared principles (Wilkinson et al., 2016), standards (Gorgolewski et al., 2016), and ontologies (Poldrack et al., 2011), as well as practices of meta-analysis (Yarkoni et al., 2011; Dockès et al., 2020) and data sharing (Gorgolewski et al., 2015). However, while functional neuroimaging data provide correlational maps between cognitive functions and activated brain regions, its usefulness in determining causal link between specific brain regions and given behaviors or functions is disputed (Weber et al., 2010; Siddiqiet al 2022). On the contrary, neuropsychological data enable causal inference, highlighting critical neural substrates and opening a unique window into the inner workings of the brain (Price, 2018). Unfortunately, the adoption of Open Science practices in clinical settings is hampered by several ethical, technical, economic, and political barriers, and as a result, open platforms enabling access to and sharing clinical (meta)data are scarce (e.g., Larivière et al., 2021). We are working with clinicians, neuroimagers, and software developers to develop an open source platform for the storage, sharing, synthesis and meta-analysis of human clinical data to the service of the clinical and cognitive neuroscience community so that the future of neuropsychology can be transdiagnostic, open, and FAIR. We call it neurocausal (https://neurocausal.github.io).

Adaptation via innovation in the animal kingdom

Over the course of evolution, the human race has achieved a number of remarkable innovations, that have enabled us to adapt to and benefit from the environment ever more effectively. The ongoing environmental threats and health disasters of our world have now made it crucial to understand the cognitive mechanisms behind innovative behaviours. In my talk, I will present two research projects with examples of innovation-based behavioural adaptation from the taxonomic kingdom of animals, serving as a comparative psychological model for mapping the evolution of innovation. The first project focuses on the challenge of overcoming physical disability. In this study, we investigated an injured kea (Nestor notabilis) that exhibits an efficient, intentional, and innovative tool-use behaviour to compensate his disability, showing evidence for innovation-based adaptation to a physical disability in a non-human species. The second project focuses on the evolution of fire use from a cognitive perspective. Fire has been one of the most dominant ecological forces in human evolution; however, it is still unknown what capabilities and environmental factors could have led to the emergence of fire use. In the core study of this project, we investigated a captive population of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) that has been regularly exposed to campfires during the cold winter months for over 60 years. Our results suggest that macaques are able to take advantage of the positive effects of fire while avoiding the dangers of flames and hot ashes, and exhibit calm behaviour around the bonfire. In addition, I will present a research proposal targeting the foraging behaviour of predatory birds in parts of Australia frequently affected by bushfires. Anecdotal reports suggest that some birds use burning sticks to spread the flames, a behaviour that has not been scientifically observed and evaluated. In summary, the two projects explore innovative behaviours along three different species groups, three different habitats, and three different ecological drivers, providing insights into the cognitive and behavioural mechanisms of adaptation through innovation.

Curiosity: Some understandings and many challenges

Attention in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Machine Learning

Using eye tracking to investigate neural circuits in health and disease

Canonical neural networks perform active inference

The free-energy principle and active inference have received a significant attention in the fields of neuroscience and machine learning. However, it remains to be established whether active inference is an apt explanation for any given neural network that actively exchanges with its environment. To address this issue, we show that a class of canonical neural networks of rate coding models implicitly performs variational Bayesian inference under a well-known form of partially observed Markov decision process model (Isomura, Shimazaki, Friston, Commun Biol, 2022). Based on the proposed theory, we demonstrate that canonical neural networks—featuring delayed modulation of Hebbian plasticity—can perform planning and adaptive behavioural control in the Bayes optimal manner, through postdiction of their previous decisions. This scheme enables us to estimate implicit priors under which the agent’s neural network operates and identify a specific form of the generative model. The proposed equivalence is crucial for rendering brain activity explainable to better understand basic neuropsychology and psychiatric disorders. Moreover, this notion can dramatically reduce the complexity of designing self-learning neuromorphic hardware to perform various types of tasks.

The neural basis of flexible semantic cognition (BACN Mid-career Prize Lecture 2022)

Semantic cognition brings meaning to our world – it allows us to make sense of what we see and hear, and to produce adaptive thoughts and behaviour. Since we have a wealth of information about any given concept, our store of knowledge is not sufficient for successful semantic cognition; we also need mechanisms that can steer the information that we retrieve so it suits the context or our current goals. This talk traces the neural networks that underpin this flexibility in semantic cognition. It draws on evidence from multiple methods (neuropsychology, neuroimaging, neural stimulation) to show that two interacting heteromodal networks underpin different aspects of flexibility. Regions including anterior temporal cortex and left angular gyrus respond more strongly when semantic retrieval follows highly-related concepts or multiple convergent cues; the multivariate responses in these regions correspond to context-dependent aspects of meaning. A second network centred on left inferior frontal gyrus and left posterior middle temporal gyrus is associated with controlled semantic retrieval, responding more strongly when weak associations are required or there is more competition between concepts. This semantic control network is linked to creativity and also captures context-dependent aspects of meaning; however, this network specifically shows more similar multivariate responses across trials when association strength is weak, reflecting a common controlled retrieval state when more unusual associations are the focus. Evidence from neuropsychology, fMRI and TMS suggests that this semantic control network is distinct from multiple-demand cortex which supports executive control across domains, although challenging semantic tasks recruit both networks. The semantic control network is juxtaposed between regions of default mode network that might be sufficient for the retrieval of strong semantic relationships and multiple-demand regions in the left hemisphere, suggesting that the large-scale organisation of flexible semantic cognition can be understood in terms of cortical gradients that capture systematic functional transitions that are repeated in temporal, parietal and frontal cortex.

Can I be bothered? Neural and computational mechanisms underlying the dynamics of effort processing (BACN Early-career Prize Lecture 2021)

From a workout at the gym to helping a colleague with their work, everyday we make decisions about whether we are willing to exert effort to obtain some sort of benefit. Increases in how effortful actions and cognitive processes are perceived to be has been linked to clinically severe impairments to motivation, such as apathy and fatigue, across many neurological and psychiatric conditions. However, the vast majority of neuroscience research has focused on understanding the benefits for acting, the rewards, and not on the effort required. As a result, the computational and neural mechanisms underlying how effort is processed are poorly understood. How do we compute how effortful we perceive a task to be? How does this feed into our motivation and decisions of whether to act? How are such computations implemented in the brain? and how do they change in different environments? I will present a series of studies examining these questions using novel behavioural tasks, computational modelling, fMRI, pharmacological manipulations, and testing in a range of different populations. These studies highlight how the brain represents the costs of exerting effort, and the dynamic processes underlying how our sensitivity to effort changes as a function of our goals, traits, and socio-cognitive processes. This work provides new computational frameworks for understanding and examining impaired motivation across psychiatric and neurological conditions, as well as why all of us, sometimes, can’t be bothered.

Brain and behavioural impacts of early life adversity

Abuse, neglect, and other forms of uncontrollable stress during childhood and early adolescence can lead to adverse outcomes later in life, including especially perturbations in the regulation of mood and emotional states, and specifically anxiety disorders and depression. However, stress experiences vary from one individual to the next, meaning that causal relationships and mechanistic accounts are often difficult to establish in humans. This interdisciplinary talk considers the value of research in experimental animals where stressor experiences can be tightly controlled and detailed investigations of molecular, cellular, and circuit-level mechanisms can be carried out. The talk will focus on the widely used repeated maternal separation procedure in rats where rat offspring are repeatedly separated from maternal care during early postnatal life. This early life stress has remarkably persistent effects on behaviour with a general recognition that maternally-deprived animals are susceptible to depressive-like phenotypes. The validity of this conclusion will be critically appraised with convergent insights from a recent longitudinal study in maternally separated rats involving translational brain imaging, transcriptomics, and behavioural assessment.

Mapping Individual Trajectories of Structural and Cognitive Decline in Mild Cognitive Impairment

The US has an aging population. For the first time in US history, the number of older adults is projected to outnumber that of children by 2034. This combined with the fact that the prevalence of Alzheimer's Disease increases exponentially with age makes for a worrying combination. Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is an intermediate stage of cognitive decline between being cognitively normal and having full-blown Dementia, with every third person with MCI progressing to dementia of the Alzheimer's Type (DAT). While there is no known way to reverse symptoms once they begin, early prediction of disease can help stall its progression and help with early financial planning. While grey matter volume loss in the Hippocampus and Entorhinal Cortex (EC) are characteristic biomarkers of DAT, little is known about the rates of decrease of these volumes within individuals in MCI state across time. We used longitudinal growth curve models to map individual trajectories of volume loss in subjects with MCI. We then looked at whether these rates of volume decrease could predict progression to DAT right in the MCI stage. Finally, we evaluated whether these rates of Hippocampal and EC volume loss were correlated with individual rates of decline of episodic memory, visuospatial ability, and executive function.

Biopsychosocial pathways in dementia inequalities

In the United States, racial/ethnic inequalities in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias persist even after controlling for socioeconomic factors and physical health. These persistent and unexplained disparities suggest: (1) there are unrecognized dementia risk factors that are socially patterned and/or (2) known dementia risk factors exhibit differential impact across social groups. Pursuing these research directions with data from multiple longitudinal studies of brain and cognitive aging has revealed several challenges to the study of late-life health inequalities, highlighted evidence for both risk and resilience within marginalized communities, and inspired new data collection efforts to advance the field.

The neuroscience of lifestyle interventions for mental health: the BrainPark approach

Our everyday behaviours, such as physical activity, sleep, diet, meditation, and social connections, have a potent impact on our mental health and the health of our brain. BrainPark is working to harness this power by developing lifestyle-based interventions for mental health and investigating how they do and don’t change the brain, and for whom they are most effective. In this webinar, Dr Rebecca Segrave and Dr Chao Suo will discuss BrainPark’s approach to developing lifestyle-based interventions to help people get better control of compulsive behaviours, and the multi-modality neuroimaging approaches they take to investigating outcomes. The webinar will explore two current BrainPark trials: 1. Conquering Compulsions - investigating the capacity of physical exercise and meditation to alter reward processing and help people get better control of a wide range of unhelpful habits, from drinking to eating to cleaning. 2. The Brain Exercise Addiction Trial (BEAT) - an NHMRC funded investigation into the capacity of physical exercise to reverse the brain harms caused by long-term heavy cannabis use. Dr Rebecca Segrave is Deputy Director and Head of Interventions Research at BrainPark, the David Winston Turner Senior Research Fellow within the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, and an AHRPA registered Clinical Neuropsychologist. Dr Chao Suo is Head of Technology and Neuroimaging at BrainPark and a Research Fellow within the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health.

Growing Up in Academia with Onur Güntürkün

There are stories of resilience, passion, braveness and determination and the one of Onur Güntürkün. He has managed to beat the odds in so many ways, from moving countries, surviving the polio, establishing a new field against the advice of a senior professor and much more, all the while keeping a positive spirit, an endless curiosity and the braveness to keep going despite adversities. Join me on Monday, February 28, 2022, 6 p.m. (CET) for a Growing Up in Academia with Onur Güntürkün.

What is Cognitive Neuropsychology Good For? An Unauthorized Biography

Abstract: There is no doubt that the study of brain damaged individuals has contributed greatly to our understanding of the mind/brain. Within this broad approach, cognitive neuropsychology accentuates the cognitive dimension: it investigates the structure and organization of perceptual, motor, cognitive, and language systems – prerequisites for understanding the functional organization of the brain – through the analysis of their dysfunction following brain damage. Significant insights have come specifically from this paradigm. But progress has been slow and enthusiasm for this approach has waned somewhat in recent years, and the use of existing findings to constrain new theories has also waned. What explains the current diminished status of cognitive neuropsychology? One reason may be failure to calibrate expectations about the effective contribution of different subfields of the study of the mind/brain as these are determined by their natural peculiarities – such factors as the types of available observations and their complexity, opportunity of access to such observations, the possibility of controlled experimentation, and the like. Here, I also explore the merits and limitations of cognitive neuropsychology, with particular focus on the role of intellectual, pragmatic, and societal factors that determine scientific practice within the broader domains of cognitive science/neuroscience. I conclude on an optimistic note about the continuing unique importance of cognitive neuropsychology: although limited to the study of experiments of nature, it offers a privileged window into significant aspects of the mind/brain that are not easily accessible through other approaches. Biography: Alfonso Caramazza's research has focussed extensively on how words and their meanings are represented in the brain. His early pioneering studies helped to reformulate our thinking about Broca's aphasia (not limited to production) and formalised the logic of patient-based neuropsychology. More recently he has been instrumental in reconsidering popular claims about embodied cognition.

Reasoning Ability: Neural Mechanisms, Development, and Plasticity

Relational thinking, or the process of identifying and integrating relations between mental representations, is regularly invoked during reasoning. This mental capacity enables us to draw higher-order abstractions and generalize across situations and contexts, and we have argued that it should be included in the pantheon of executive functions. In this talk, I will briefly review our lab's work characterizing the roles of lateral prefrontal and parietal regions in relational thinking. I will then discuss structural and functional predictors of individual differences and developmental changes in reasoning.

Modeling Visual Attention in Neuroscience, Psychology, and Machine Learning

Architectural Psychology with Professor David Canter

Emotions are constructed of more basic networks

It has long been assumed that certain “basic” emotions emerge from anatomically ingrained circuits. Yet growing research suggests that emotions emerge from more basic networks that comprise the brain’s basic functional architecture. In this talk, I’ll discuss evidence that human emotional experiences are associated with the co-activation of broadscale networks subserving psychological functions that are not specific to emotion.

How bilingualism modulates the neural mechanisms of selective attention

Learning and using multiple languages places considerable demands on our cognitive system, and has been shown to modulate the mechanisms of selective attention in both children and adults. Yet the nature of these adaptive changes is still not entirely clear. One possibility is that bilingualism boosts the capacity for selective attention; another is that it leads to a different distribution of this finite resource, aimed at supporting optimal performance under the increased processing demands. I will present a series of studies investigating the nature of modifications of selective attention in bilingualism. Using behavioural and neuroimaging techniques, our data confirm that bilingualism modifies the neural mechanisms of selective attention even in the absence of behavioural differences between monolinguals and bilinguals. They further suggest that, instead of enhanced attentional capacity, these neuroadaptive modifications appear to reflect its redistribution, arguably aimed at economising the available resources to support optimal behavioural performance.

The pervasive role of visuospatial coding

Historically, retinotopic organisation (the spatial mapping of the retina across the cortical surface) was considered the purview of early regions of visual cortex (V1-V4) only and that anterior, more cognitively involved regions abstracted this information away. The contemporary view is quite different. Here, with Advancing technologies and analysis methods, we see that retinotopic information is not simply thrown away by these regions but rather is maintained to the potential benefit of our broader cognition. This maintenance of visuospatial coding extends not only through visual cortex, but is present in parietal, frontal, medial and subcortical structures involved with coordinating-movements, mind-wandering and even memory. In this talk, I will outline some of the key empirical findings from my own work and the work of others that shaped this contemporary perspective.

Towards an inclusive neurobiology of language

Understanding how our brains process language is one of the fundamental issues in cognitive science. In order to reach such understanding, it is critical to cover the full spectrum of manners in which humans acquire and experience language. However, due to a myriad of socioeconomic factors, research has disproportionately focused on monolingual English speakers. In this talk, I present a series of studies that systematically target fundamental questions about bilingual language use across a range of conversational contexts, both in production and comprehension. The results lay the groundwork to propose a more inclusive theory of the neurobiology of language, with an architecture that assumes a common selection principle at each linguistic level and can account for attested features of both bilingual and monolingual speech in, but crucially also out of, experimental settings.

Limbic generators of delight, desire and dread

Scaffolding up from Social Interactions: A proposal of how social interactions might shape learning across development

Social learning and analogical reasoning both provide exponential opportunities for learning. These skills have largely been studied independently, but my future research asks how combining skills across previously independent domains could add up to more than the sum of their parts. Analogical reasoning allows individuals to transfer learning between contexts and opens up infinite opportunities for innovation and knowledge creation. Its origins and development, so far, have largely been studied in purely cognitive domains. Constraining analogical development to non-social domains may mistakenly lead researchers to overlook its early roots and limit ideas about its potential scope. Building a bridge between social learning and analogy could facilitate identification of the origins of analogical reasoning and broaden its far-reaching potential. In this talk, I propose that the early emergence of social learning, its saliency, and its meaningful context for young children provides a springboard for learning. In addition to providing a strong foundation for early analogical reasoning, the social domain provides an avenue for scaling up analogies in order to learn to learn from others via increasingly complex and broad routes.

Get more from your ISH brain slices with Stalefish

The standard method for staining structures in the brain is to slice the brain into 2D sections. Each slice is treated using a technique such as in-situ hybridization to examine the spatial expression of a particular molecule at a given developmental timepoint. Depending on the brain structures being studied, slices can be made coronally, sagitally, or at any angle that is thought to be optimal for analysis. However, assimilating the information presented in the 2D slice images to gain quantitiative and informative 3D expression patterns is challenging. Even if expression levels are presented as voxels, to give 3D expression clouds, it can be difficult to compare expression across individuals and analysing such data requires significant expertise and imagination. In this talk, I will describe a new approach to examining histology slices, in which the user defines the brain structure of interest by drawing curves around it on each slice in a set and the depth of tissue from which to sample expression. The sampled 'curves' are then assembled into a 3D surface, which can then be transformed onto a common reference frame for comparative analysis. I will show how other neuroscientists can obtain and use the tool, which is called Stalefish, to analyse their own image data with no (or minimal) changes to their slice preparation workflow.

Understanding the Assessment of Spatial Neglect and its Treatment Using Prism Adaptation Training

Spatial neglect is a syndrome that is most frequently associated with damage to the right hemisphere, although damage to the left hemisphere can also result in signs of spatial neglect. It is characterised by absent or deficient awareness of the contralesional side of space. The screening and diagnosis of spatial neglect lacks a universal gold standard, but is usually achieved by using various modes of assessment. Spatial neglect is also difficult to treat, although prism adaptation training (PAT) has in the past reportedly showed some promise. This seminar will include highlights from a series of studies designed to identify knowledge gaps, and will suggest ways in which these can be bridged. The first study was conducted to identify and quantify clinicians’ use of assessment tools for spatial neglect, finding that several different tools are in use, but that there is an emerging consensus and appetite for harmonisation. The second study included PAT, and sought to uncover whether PAT can improve engagement in recommended therapy in order to improve the outcomes of stroke survivors with spatial neglect. The final study, a systematic review and meta-analysis, sought to investigate the scientific efficacy (rather than clinical effectiveness) of PAT, identifying several knowledge gaps in the existing literature and a need for a new approach in the study of PAT in the clinical setting.

Strong and weak principles of neural dimension reduction

Large-scale, single neuron resolution recordings are inherently high-dimensional, with as many dimensions as neurons. To make sense of them, for many the answer is: reduce the number of dimensions. In this talk I argue we can distinguish weak and strong principles of neural dimension reduction. The weak principle is that dimension reduction is a convenient tool for making sense of complex neural data. The strong principle is that dimension reduction moves us closer to how neural circuits actually operate and compute. Elucidating these principles is crucial, for which we subscribe to provides radically different interpretations of the same dimension reduction techniques applied to the same data. I outline experimental evidence for each principle, but illustrate how we could make either the weak or strong principles appear to be true based on innocuous looking analysis decisions. These insights suggest arguments over low and high-dimensional neural activity need better constraints from both experiment and theory.

Sleep and Plasticity - New insights from in vivo calcium imaging

Exploring the interplay of glucocorticoids, daily timing, sleep, and psychology-based task performance

FENS Forum 2024

Identifying central timing mechanisms in the human cerebellum across explicit and implicit timing: A combined neuropsychology-electroencephalography approach

FENS Forum 2024