Van der Veer News

News and Events – September 2008

PUBLICATIONS

Alastruey J, Moore SM, Parker KH, David T, Peiró J, Sherwin SJ (2008). Reduced modelling of blood flow in the cerebral circulation: Coupling 1-D, 0-D and cerebral auto-regulation models. International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids, 56(8), 1061-1067.

David T, Moore S (in press). Modeling Perfusion in the Cerebral Vasculature: a review. Medical Engineering & Physics.

Mace J, Porter R, O’Brien J, Gallagher P (2008). Cognitive effects of acute tryptophan depletion in the healthy elderly. Acta Neuropsychiatrica, 20(2), 78-86.

David T, Moore S (2008). A model of autoregulated blood flow in the cerebral vasculature. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Part H, Journal of Engineering in Medicine, 222 (H4), 513-530.

van Stockum S, MacAskill M, Anderson T, Dalrymple-Alford J (2008). Don’t look now or look away: two sources of saccadic disinhibition in Parkinson’s disease? Neuropsychologia, 46(13), 3108-3115.

CONFERENCES

Petra Hoggarth and Kelly Hood attended the University of Canterbury Postgraduate Showcase (3 September) and presented the following papers:

Hoggarth PA, Jones RD, Innes CRH, Dalrymple-Alford JC ‘The complex task of predicting driving ability in healthy older adults’.

Hood KM, Woodward L, Champion P ‘Emotional regulation of preschool children born very preterm and implications for school functioning’.

Janet Mace attended the 8^th Annual Scientific Meeting of the International College of Geriatric Psychoneuropharmacology in Sydney Australia, 3 – 6 September 2008 and presented the following poster:

Mace J, Porter R, Dalrymple-Alford JC, Anderson TJ ‘Tryptophan depletion impairs global cognitive status and verbal memory but improves visual memory and psychomotor speed in Parkinson’s disease’.

EVENTS

The Van der Veer Institute Brain Research Forum was held on Monday 15 September, in the Beaven Lecture Theatre at the Christchurch School of Medicine & Health Sciences. The speaker was Associate Professor Richard Porter from the Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, Christchurch. Richard presented ‘Neuropsychological impairment in depression: its nature and clinical significance’ and included neuroendocrine effects on brain morphology and insights into depression provided by functional brain imaging and neuropsychological testing.

GRANTS

John Dalrymple-Alford, Cliff Abraham, Neil McNaughton and overseas researchers John Aggleton (Cardiff, UK), Bruno Bontempi (Bordeaux, France), Claire Rampon (Toulouse, France), Jean-Christophe Cassel (Strasbourg, France), Christos Nakas (Thessaly, Greece), and Richard Taylor (Oregon, US) were successful in obtaining an HRC International Investment Fund Opportunity grant of $390,000 over 2 years for their project ‘Rescuing memory loss after brain injury’.

Petra Hoggarth, Carrie Innes, Richard Jones, and John Dalrymple-Alford were successful in obtaining a Canterbury Medical Research Foundation Project Grant of $12,033 for their project ‘Predicting safe driving in persons with MCI or Alzheimer’s disease’.

Carrie Innes, Richard Jones, Govinda Poudel, and Leigh Signal were successful in obtaining a Canterbury Medical Research Foundation Project Grant of $63,981 for their project ‘Struggling to stay awake: EEG & behaviour following sleep deprivation’.

Richard Jones, Govinda Poudel, Carrie Innes, Phil Bones, John Dalrymple-Alford, Fabio Babiloni, and Laura Astolfi were successful in obtaining a Marsden Fund grant of $769,000 over 3 years for their project ‘Losing the struggle to stay awake: What happens in the brain during a lapse of responsiveness?’.

Janet Mace was awarded a New Zealand Royal Society Travel Grant of $500 to assist with her attendance at the 8^th Annual Scientific Meeting of the International College of Geriatric Psychoneuropharmacology in Sydney Australia.

GRADUATIONS

Janet Mace graduated on 16^th August with a PhD from the Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Otago, Christchurch. Her thesis was titled ‘The effects of acute tryptophan depletion on movement, mood and cognition in patients with Parkinson’s disease and healthy older persons’ and supervised by Richard Porter and John Dalrymple-Alford.

AWARDS

Petra Hoggarth won the College of Science best presentation award of $250 for her presentation ‘The complex task of predicting driving ability in healthy older adults’ at the University of Canterbury Postgraduate Showcase (3 September).

Loud Shirt Day 2008

On Friday 19^th September, many people at the Institute dusted the mothballs off their brightest shirts and sported them for Loud Shirt Day (http://www.loudshirtday.co.nz/). Loud Shirt Day is the annual appeal run by The Hearing House and the Southern Cochlear Implant Programme. Daniel Myall won the ‘best effort’ award with his self-sewn shirt made from curtains from his childhood days. He even donned a Van der Veer logo on the front. Valeria Lushkina won ‘best overall look’ for her loud outfit. The team had some very strange looks when out for lunch at Winnie Bagoes, but the effort was well worth it, with $241.50 being raised for hearing impaired children.

Face, eye, and eye-closure detection algorithm

Amol’s face, eye, eye-closure detection algorithm in action. The video shows face region-of-interest (blue box), with its centre (black cross) in which, the eye closure is measured based on position of the estimated upper eyelid (blue dash lines) in reference to the position and height when the eye is fully open (red lines). The recording was made in ambient lighting with infrared emitting diodes around camera, and with an infrared filter in front of the lens. The file contains 33 frames at 5 frames/s but note that frames are not sequential nor processed in real-time.

Click to Watch!