News and Events – December 2007
PUBLICATIONS
Borrie S, McAuliffe MJ, Tillard G, Ormond T, Anderson T, Hornibrook J (2007). Effect of the Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT) on articulation in speakers with Parkinson’s disease. New Zealand Journal of Speech-Language Therapy, 62, 29-36.
Kelly BN, Huckabee ML, Jones RD, Frampton CMA (2007). Integrating swallowing and respiration: Effect of body position. Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology, 15, 347-355.
Kelly BN, Huckabee ML, Jones RD, Carroll GJ (2007). The Influence of volition on breathing-swallowing coordination in healthy adults. Behavioral Neuroscience, 121, 1174-1179.
Mace J, Porter R, O’Brien J, Gallagher P (in press). Cognitive effects of acute tryptophan depletion in the healthy elderly. Acta Neuropsychiatrica.
Wolff M, Gibb SJ, Cassel J-C, Dalrymple-Alford JC (in press). Anterior but not intralaminar thalamic nuclei support allocentric spatial memory. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.
EVENTS
The 22nd Van der Veer Institute Brain Research Forum was held on Monday 3rd December in the Rolleston Lecture Theatre, University of Otago, Christchurch. There were two speakers:
Juliane Wilcke, Departments of Physics and Astronomy, and Psychology, University of Canterbury, presented ‘Imaging consciousness in the brain: An fMRI and DTI study of binocular rivalry’.
When a different image is presented to each eye, only one image is perceived at a time, but our perception flips from one to the other every few seconds as the images vie for dominance. Functional imaging indicated brain areas involved in switching conscious perceptions, while diffusion tensor imaging revealed networks connecting those areas.
Andrew Webb, Department of Computer Science, University of Otago, Dunedin, presented ‘Man. Dog. Bite. A new approach to the binding problem’.
Skilled actions involve characteristic sequences of movements and attentional processes. By examining gaze patterns, we show that people watching the actions of others use attentional sequences similar to those of the people they are watching. Observing other people’s actions imposes a structure upon our own.
GRANTS
Richard Jones, Paul Davidson, Govinda Poudel, Carrie Innes, and Richard Watts were awarded a Lottery Health Research project grant of $99,754 for their project ‘Neural bases of lapses of responsiveness: Simultaneous fMRI and EEG’. The grant will cover structural and functional MRI scans, salary, EEG laboratory charges, and patient travel reimbursement.
Richard Jones, Carrie Innes, John Dalrymple-Alford, and Petra Hoggarth were awarded a Transport Research and Educational Trust project grant of $15,750 for their project ‘Objective screening and prediction of safe driving in older drivers through computerized sensory-motor and cognitive tests’. The grant will cover the cost of a driving occupational therapist and driving instructor to conduct on-road driving assessments.
Sebastian Doeltgen received a Travel Grant-in-aid of $500 from the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation to assist his travel to the Annual Meeting of the Dysphagia Research Society in Charleston, South Carolina, in March 2008. Sebastian will be presenting data from his project investigating the effect of neuromuscular electrical stimulation of the anterior hyoid muscle group on swallowing neurophysiology.
Janet Mace received a 3-month Postgraduate Publishing Bursary from the University of Otago. Bursaries are awarded to PhD candidates whose theses are under examination to allow them time to prepare papers for publication in journals of international standing.
SCHOLARSHIPS
Phoebe Macrae was awarded the W & B Miller Postgraduate Scholarship from the Neurological Foundation for her PhD project ‘Investigating pre-motor planning of volitional and naive swallows via the Bereitschaftspotential’.