UCL Institute of Neurology

Professor Ray Dolan (Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience) last month gave the prestigious IET/BCS Alan Turing Lecture for 2012.

As reported in the Daily Mail:

"Scientists have discovered for the first time that being rebellious may be hard-wired in our brains."

Professor Ray Dolan has been elected a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science (APS) for “sustained outstanding contributions to the science of psychology”.

Professor Eleanor Maguire (UCL Imaging Neuroscience) comments on how taxi drivers’ brains rewire while learning their way around London.

Congratulations to UCL’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging Research Fellow, Klaus Wunderlich, who has won the Lloyd’s “Science of Risk” Prize in the category of Behavioural Risk. His paper was also voted “Best Overall Paper”.

30 November 2011

We report, with great sadness, the death on 28 November of Jon Driver, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, and one of the world’s leading psychologists and neuroscientists.

 A study published in Neuron last week, conducted at UCL's Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, shows that the conventional view of how our brains learn has to be revisited. Previously, it was thought that the dopaminergic inputs that the ventral striatum receives from mid-brain structures signal a reward prediction error which facilitates learning from rewards. However, the study conducted by Miriam Klein-Flugge, Tim Behrens and colleagues, found that in situations where learning does not depend on rewards, the ventral striatal signal flexibly adapts and instead reflects a behaviourally relevant teaching signal, while the mid-brain still encodes the classic reward prediction error.

 Links

Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging
Original paper in The Journal for Neuroscience
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences

Congratulations to Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging’s Professor Eleanor Maguire who is the recipient of the Eighth International Prize of the Dargut and Milena Kemali Foundation for Basic and Clinical Neurosciences, for innovative contributions to understanding human memory. The Kemali Prize (25,000 Euro) will be awarded at the Congress of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies, FENS FORUM 2012, to be held in Barcelona, Spain (July 14 - 18, 2012), where the prize winner will also deliver the Kemali Lecture.

A new test of consciousness which could be helpful in the diagnosis of coma patients has been identified in new research led by scientists from the University of Liège and a team from the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience

Recent studies have shown that patients with severe brain damage who show little outward signs of perception or understanding may have a certain degree of pain experience and awareness. New methods of measuring awareness could help doctors better predict the likelihood of recovery and give families an indication on whether their loved one is aware of their presence.

In the study, published today in the journal Science, the team measured the electrical response to auditory stimulation by means of high-density electroencephalography (EEG). Using a sophisticated mathematical model they identified a neural signature of consciousness in healthy volunteers and in patients with "minimal consciousness" but not in unresponsive so-called "vegetative" patients. The study helps unravel how subjective consciousness arises from the physical activity of trillions of brain connections.

The University of Liège researchers, led by Dr. Melanie Boly and Dr. Steven Laureys, worked with Professor Karl Friston, Dr. Marta Garrido, and Dr. Vladimir Litvak at UCL on the development of mathematical models to identify the activated cerebral network and its "consciousness connections".

read more >>  Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging |  University of Liège | Science | UCL News

10 May 2011

• Links:
• UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
• Professor Phillip Beales
• Professor David Hawkes
• Professor Eleanor Maguire
• Professor Andrew Phillips

Professor Sanjay Sisodiya's webpage

Human behaviour such as speech and movement requires precise coordination in time. But how does the brain perceive time? In particular, how does the brain perceive the durations between the intervals in a sequence of sounds, such as rhythms we hear in music?

Professor Eleanor Maguire, Senior Research Fellow in the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, has been awarded the 2011 Feldberg Foundation prize, to facilitate the exchange of scientific knowledge between German and British scientists.

The Feldberg Foundation, a registered German charity, was established in 1961 by Professor Wilhelm Feldberg, CBE, FRS, with the aim of promoting scientific contact between Germany and the UK, particularly between researchers working in the area of physiology, pharmacology and related topics. Each year the foundation awards two prizes, worth €20,000 each, to two scientists, one German and one British.

Professor Maguire, this year’s British recipient stated, "I'm stunned and honoured to have been awarded this prestigious prize. I very much look forward to giving my lectures in Germany, and further cementing what are already close relations between UK and German neuroscience."

Our ability to reflect on our own thoughts, emotions and behaviour is one of the key aspects of consciousness and what makes us human, but the biological basis of this process – known as 'introspection' – has until now been unknown.

Two heads can be better than one – but only if you have the right partner says a study published today in the journal Science.

The study, led by Professor Chris Frith of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL and Niels Bohr Professor at the University of Aarhus, found that two heads were better than one, but only when both partners were equally competent and could freely discuss their disagreements.

We are delighted to congratulate two researchers based at Queen Square, Dr Paul Bays (IoN Department of Brain Repair and Rehabilitation) and Dr Fiona McNab (Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience), on being awarded Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellowships.

The Wellcome Career Development Fellowship scheme provides an opportunity for postdoctoral scientists from across the remits of the Wellcome Trust's funding streams to become independent research scientists and undertake high-quality research.

A new research study suggests that – at least at a neuronal level – agreement is much more satisfying than disagreement. 

A groundbreaking online tool launched today by UCL promises to help people whose sight has been damaged by stroke to learn to read again.

Congratulations to Professor Chris Frith, Emeritus Professor, Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging  on being awarded the 2009 Fyssen International Prize.

Computer programs can predict which of three short films a person is thinking about, just by looking at their brain activity.

12th November

Enhancing the effects of the brain chemical dopamine influences how people make life choices by affecting expectations of pleasure, according to new research from the IoN Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience.

Colombian guerrillas help UCL scientists locate literacy in the brain

Scientists have redefined their understanding of the key regions of the brain involved in literacy.

A study led by Dr Tali Sharot (Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL) published today in the Journal of Neuroscience has found that your brain may know what you prefer before you do.