Projects
Current Projects
Biochemical mechanisms of rest-stimulus interaction
Introduction: Certain areas of the human brain display a higher level of activity during rest than when the individual is presented with a certain stimulus. How this resting-state activity interacts with and modulates stimulus-induced activity is a question that has great relevance to our understanding of how the brain works and the causes of mental disorders. Some fMRI and EEG studies have demonstrated that rest-stimulus interactions do occur, but the details of the biochemical mechanisms mediating them are unknown at present.
To investigate the biochemical underpinings of rest-stimulus interactions, a combined fMRI/MRS and PET paradigm will relate brain activity changes at the interface between the resting state and stimulus onset with resting state levels of GABA and glutamate, as well as with GABA-A receptor density. In addition, the difference between interactions between the resting-state and intero- and extero-ceptive stimuli will be determined and related to GABAergic and glutamatergic neurotransmission.
Methods: fMRI, PET, MRS, behavioural testing
Members: Georg Northoff, Niall Duncan, Christine Wiebking, Oliver Lyttelton, David Hayes
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Context-dependent aversion-related processing
Introduction: A punishment is any aversive event that an animal will expend energy to avoid; in this context, it is operationally opposite to reward. Anxiety, fear, and pain are all concepts related to the processing of aversive stimuli. Aversion-related brain circuitry consists of a network of areas involved in the basic processing of these types of stimuli.
Which brain areas are common to the processing of aversive stimuli? Is this network similar in humans and other mammals? What role does context and the brain’s own resting state play in changing the way aversive stimuli are processed?
The main goals of this project are to: review and clearly define this aversive-related circuitry; develop a translational approach for investigating ways in which aversion is affected by context; apply this understanding to neuropsychiatric disorders in which a pathophysiology of aversive-related circuitry may exist.
Methods: fMRI, PET, MRS, behavioural testing
Members: Georg Northoff, David Hayes, Niall Duncan
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Function of medial prefrontal cortex in social decision making
Introduction: In daily life, people often need to choose a particular behaviour from amongst several correct options (for example, when chosing one's occupation or in interpersonal communication). In such conflict-ridden situations, the medial region of the frontal cortex (medial prefrontal cortex) is thought to have an important function: biasing one's own behaviour. The aim of this project is to examine the function of the medial prefrontal cortex in such social decision making.
Methods: fMRI, ERP
Members: Takashi Nakao
Contact:
Mismatch negativity evoked by self-relatedness under both explicit and implicit conditions
Introduction: There have been numerous studies indicating that self-related processing is distinct from other cognitive processing. In particular, self-related stimuli (for example, one's own name) have been proven to capture one's attention more easily than non-self related stimuli. However, the question as to why self-related stimuli capture our attention so easily still remains unclear.
Mismatch negativity (MMN) is one event-related potential waveform that is an ideal tool to study the early automatic stage of sound evaluation. Recently, more and more researchers have tried to verify that the MMN can also be evoked by mental characteristics such as emotion and familiarity. Self-relatedness is one such mental characteristic representing experience; one that is intriguingly related to one's own person. In order to answer the question why self-related stimuli can apparently enter consciousness so easily, we will attempt to detect the MMN evoked by self-relatedness.
Methods: EEG, behavioural testing
Members: PengMin Qin, Georg Northoff
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Interaction between semantic and syntactic processing in sentence comprehension
Introduction: The study of language can be divided into three main themes. There are semantics (how we understand the meaning of the word), syntactics (how we understand the grammar of the sentence), and phonology (how we understand the sound of the word or conversation). By using physiological measurement called Event-Related brain Potential (ERP) we are investigating the relationship between these three themes.
Methods: ERP, behavioural testing
Members: Hitomi Nakao
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Past Projects
Self and Reward Processing
Introduction: The "reward system“ is a network of different brain regions which is responsible experiences such as happiness, pleasure or the general feeling of satisfaction. In contrast, the "self system“ is a basic system that decides whether a stimulus is categorized as self associated or not.
The main questions of our project were: What is the difference between both systems? What have both systems in common? Do they share the same brain networks?
In some diseases (e. g. alcoholism) both systems seem to be disturbed. People who suffer from alcoholism often have problems feeling happy and satisfied without alcohol, a result of their deficient reward system. On the other hand those people often describe that nothing is important to them, except alcohol.
In our study we investigated different groups of patients as well as healthy subjects demonstrating sustained recruitment of the reward system during self-relatedness. .
Methods: fMRI, behavioural tests
Members: Georg Northoff, Moritz de Greck, Ulrike Bruer, Rene Thiemann, Ulrike Prösch, Rabea Paus, Diana Moritz, Daniel Müller
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Interoceptive Awareness
Introduction: Interoceptive awareness is the ability to perceive signals arising from the body. This sensitivity is an important factor in theories of emotions, which describe a connection between interocpetive awareness and the experience of emotions. According to these theories of emotions one of our aims was to investigate the accuracy of interoceptive awareness, the emotional experience and their relationship in healthy people as well as in people who suffer from emotional restrictions.
Methods: We explored neuronal activity using fMRI, combining this with measures of emotional experience in the form of various neuropsychological tests.
Results: We found that patients with major depressive disorder displayed abnormal bodily perception and abnormal interoceptive precessing.
Members: Christine Wiebking, Moritz de Greck, Georg Northoff
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How is informed consent related to emotions and empathy? An exploratory neuroethical investigation
Introduction: Informed consent is crucial in clinical scientific research. Recent empirical research pointed out the central role of cognitive functions in the decisional capacity to give informed consent. While they are certainly crucial in the procedure to obtain informed consent, the role of affective functions like empathy and emotions remains to be determined.
In an exploratory study, we therefore investigated a mixed group of healthy and psychiatric subjects. The decisional capacity and the informed consent to a subsequent imaging study were evaluated with the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool (MacCAT). Empathy and emotion recognition were measured with standardized instruments like the Multifaceted Empathy Test (MET) and the Florida Affect Battery (FAB).
Methods: behavioural testing
Members: Alexander Supady, Antonie Voelkel, Joachim Witzel, Udo Gubka, Georg Northoff
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Functional neuroanatomy in depressed patients: An fMRI study on a 7 Tesla scanner
Introduction: Patients with bipolar depression show regional abnormalities in medial cortical regions like the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and subcortical regions like the basal ganglia. How and whether these regional deficits are related to these patients’ cognitive symptoms in anticipation and recollection of salient events as well as their exact neurometabolic characterizations remains however unclear.
In a previously conducted pilot study in healthy subjects on 7 Tesla using a paradigm for the anticipation and recollection of salient events we could reveal regional activity in the above mentioned medial cortical and subcortical regions. The general aim of this study was the investigation of the functional neuroanatomy and regional metabolism in patients with depression before and after treatment.
Methods: Depressed patients and age matched healthy controlsl underwent fMRI measurements at high field strengths of 3 and 7 Tesla to investigate both group differences and individual patterns, visualized with high resolution fMRI.
Members: Martin Walter, Oliver Speck, Georg Northoff
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