| Perception and Action Team |
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The perception and action team is part of the cognitive neuroscience group.
We rarely find it difficult to reach for our coffee mug or to drive in dense traffic. The apparent ease of these tasks belies their computational complexity. One way to infer how the brain accomplishes tasks is to examine the problems faced by neurological patients (a technique known as neuropsychology). Further techniques involve examining the brain activity and response strategies of healthy adults.
- Carl Jackson: Neuroimaging studies of parietal lobe function.
- Georgina Jackson: Selection and control of action, co-ordination of goal-directed action.
- Steve Jackson: Sensorimotor transformations which underlie goal-directed action; Perception action binding; Mechanisms of movement co-ordination.
- Roger Newport: Reaching and grip force.
- Sally Pears: Motor control, temporal order judgements, visual spatial comression.
- Suzanne Ryan : Neuropsychological studies of movement planning and control.
- Gaia Scerif:Neurocognitive development in typically and atypically developing toddlers and young children. Development of attention.
- Alan Sunderland: Understanding of the processes underlying recovery from stroke.
- Rachel Swainson: Task switching, Parkinsons disease.
- Kirsten McKenzie
- Åsa Pellijeff: Body representation,multisensory integration.
- Martin Schuermann:Crossmodal interaction and multisensory processing, Neurobiological basis of social perception (human mirror-neuron system), Neurophysiology at systems level, Methods: MEG, EEG, and functional MRI
- Deborah Serrien:brain imaging techniques to investigate human motor function; planning and coordination of bimanual movements.Dense-sensor EEG and MEG techniques to investigate brain oscillations associated with motor control.
- Antonia Hamilton:
- Leonardo Bonilha: Neuroimaging and electrophysiology of task switching.
- Bianca de Haan: Functional neuroimaging of motor control.
- Sally (Yu-Ju) Chou: Dyslexia and development.
- Ross Cunnington: Physiology of motor control.
- Chiara Guerrini: Neuropsychology of spatial attention.
- Rachael Fullam: Motor control.
- Jeri Kalogeras: Intentionality and perception.
- Elizabeth Liddle: Dyslexia, development and action.
- Anna Plodowski: Vision and motor control.
- Chris Rorden: Crossmodal perception, visual-motor integration.
- Dan Smith: Handedness and neuropsychology.
- ERP: By measuring the electrical activity of the brain, we can examine the brain activity of individuals as they complete simple tasks. The perception and action team uses a state of the art 128-channel EGI system.
- Eye Tracking: Human visual acuity is only sharp at the focus of our gaze - to see a scene clearly we need to move our eyes. Observing eye movements allows us to understand the perceptual and motor computations of the brain.
- Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Our collaboration with the University's Physics department allows us to examine brain activity using a 3 Tesla magnet.
- Neuopsychology: By working with stroke patients we can often infer brain function. We study the deficits, preserved skills and (often very rapid) recovery of neurological patients. Our group's MRIcro software has become a popular tool for understanding the brain regions responsible for neuropsychological syndromes.
- Reach tracking: We use a sohpisticated magnetic motion tracking system to precisely observe the trajectory of reaches.
- TMS: Transcranial magnetic stimulation allows us to safely disrupt the processing of visual and motor signals.
Click here to see some recent images (new: see photos from the neuropsychology conference in Bressanone, Italy, 2003).
We are eager to recruit new members. We have just filled three fully funded PhD studentships and we hope to find more students for October 2003. All interested candidates are encouraged to contact Steve Jackson.
