New Title - All is not lost: The role of intra-saccadic information in active vision
Our next speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the winter semester 2018 is Prof. Dr. Martin Rolfs from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Time: December 12, 2018 (Wed), 16.15 h
Location: Lecture Hall, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Albert-Schweitzer-Campus 1, Building A9, 2nd Floor, Room 120.074
| Thesis Defense
PhD for Annegret Meermeier
Dr. Annegret Meermeier is the second OCC PhD student who successfully defended her thesis this month. Her thesis "Effects of Image Content in Saccadic Adaptation" was supervised by Prof. Dr. Markus Lappe, Prof. Dr. Rebekka Lencer and Dr. Svenja Gremmler. Congratulations!
| Thesis Defense
PhD for Pia Lau
We congratulate Dr. Pia Lau on successfully defending her thesis "The sound of Silence - analyzing psychological, neuroscientific and therapeutic aspects in Tinnitus" at the Institute of Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis on Friday, November 23rd. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Christo Pantev, Prof. Dr. Pienie Zwitserlood and Prof. Dr. Thomas Ehring.
We welcome Dr. Christian Wolf as the newest member of the Otto Creutzfeldt Center. His main research interest is in eye movements and visual perception as well as in valuation and decision making. After finishing his PhD in the collaborative research center 'Cardinal mechanisms of perception' at the Philipps-University in Marburg, he joined the research group of OCC Member Markus Lappe at the Institute of Psychology, University of Münster.
Torge Dellert is the newest member in our OCC PhD Program. He investigates in his PhD project the neural correlates of consciousness during visual and auditory perception using electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. The project is supervised by OCC member Prof. Dr. Thomas Straube and the Phd Committee is completed by the OCC members Prof. Dr. Pienie Zwitserlood and Dr. Maximilian Bruchmann. Welcome!
Dr. José Walter Tolentino-Castro successfully defended his thesis "Movement Recognition and Motor Behavior of Persons
with Intellectual Disabilities". The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Gerson Ballester, Prof. Dr. Heiko Wagner and Dr. Marc de Lussanet. Congratulations!
We welcome Insa Schloßmacher as a new member of the OCC PhD program. In her PhD project she investigates the interrelation between sensory consciousness and predictive processing. The thesis is supervised by the OCC members Prof. Dr. Thomas Straube, Prof. Dr. Ricarda Schubotz and Dr. Maximilian Bruchmann.
A paper titled "Women with Anorexia Nervosa do not show altered tactile localization compared to healthy controls" by OCC PhD student Judith Mergen, Anouk Keizer, Maarten van den Heuvel and OCC members Katja Kölkebeck and Heiko Wagner has been published in Psychiatry Research. The authors present the results of two experiments investigating a one-point-localization task. Results are interpreted in the context of the phenomenon of overestimation in patients with Anorexia Nervosa.
Dr. Maimu Rehbein is the newest member of the Otto Creutzfeldt Center. She investigates the psychophysiology of fear, anxiety, and anxiety disorders at the Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis. Welcome!
| Thesis Defense
PhD for Judith Mergen
We congratulate Dr. Judith Mergen on successfully defending her thesis "Physical Self-Concept and Body Image in Healthy Adolescent Girls and Women with Anorexia Nervosa" at the Institute of Sport and Exercise Sciences on Friday, July 20th. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Heiko Wagner, Prof. Dr. Miriam Seyda and Dr. Anouk Keizer.
We welcome Dr. Inga Meyhöfer as a new member of the Otto Creutzfeldt Center. After she finished her PhD at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-University in Bonn in the Cognitive Psychology Unit, Inga Meyhöfer became a researcher at the Münster University Hospital in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy. She investigates different cognitive functions in the psychosis spectrum and searches for oculomotor biomarkers in clinical populations.
We welcome Luca Fazio as a new member of the OCC PhD program. He started his PhD project, in which he focuses on the evaluation of the consequences of demyelination and altered excitability on the functionality of the auditory thalamocortical system, under the supervision of OCC member Prof. Dr. Thomas Budde at the Department of Neurology. The PhD committee is completed by OCC members Prof. Dr. Sylvia Kaiser and Prof. Dr. Sven Meuth.
| Thesis Defense
PhD for Isabelle Klinkenberg
We congratulate Dr. Isabelle Klinkenberg on successfully defending her thesis at the Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis on Friday, July 6th. The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Markus Junghöfer (Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis), Prof. Dr. Pienie Zwitserlood (Institute of Psychology) and Prof. Dr. Markus Lappe (Institute of Psychology).
Becoming a Social Partner: The Development of Action Understanding and Action Coordination in Infants and Toddlers
Our next speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the summer semester 2018 is Prof. Dr. Sabine Hunnius from the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University Nijmegen.
Time: July 11, 2018 (Wed), 16.15 h
Location: Lecture Hall, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Albert-Schweitzer-Campus 1, Building A9, 2nd Floor, Room 120.074
Comparison processes in judgment: implications for mental-health science
Our next speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the summer semester 2018 is Prof. Dr. Nexhmedin Morina from the Institute of Psychology , University of Münster.
Time: July 4, 2018 (Wed), 16.15 h
Location: Lecture Hall, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Albert-Schweitzer-Campus 1, Building A9, 2nd Floor, Room 120.074
Sind die Gedanken noch frei – ein neues Menschenbild durch die Hirnforschung?
Wir freuen uns sehr, den ärztlichen Direktor des Universitätsklinikums Münster Prof. Dr. Dr. Robert Nitsch für einen Vortrag im neurowissenschaftlichen Kolloquium des Otto Creutzfeldt Centers begrüßen zu dürfen.
Zeit: 13. Juni 2018 (Mi), 16:15 Uhr
Ort: Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Albert-Schweitzer-Campus 1, Hörsaal 2. Stock
This year's OCC Retreat was held at the Youth Hostel in Haltern on May 28.-29. The OCC PhD students presented the current state of their projects in twenty-minute talks and the diversity of the covered topics from serotonin transporter genotypes to computational models of visual processing was impressive once again. You can find the complete program here. Furthermore, during this year's Retreat the students could not only train their ability to present their research to a a scientific audience but they also had the chance to organize internships in different OCC labs to learn and to teach new and advanced neuroscientific methods.
We welcome Annika Schimmelpfennig as a new member of the OCC PhD program. Annika Schimmelpfennig started her PhD project "Castration vs. Sterilization – Effects on Animal Welfare" under the supervision of OCC member Prof. Dr. Sylvia Kaiser at the Department of Behavioural Biology. The PhD committee is completed by Prof. Dr. Stefan Schlatt and the OCC member Prof. Dr. Norbert Sachser.
We welcome Jana Masselink as a new member of the OCC PhD program. She started her PhD project "Oculomotor learning via plasticity in visouspatial, motor and forward model coordinates" under the supervision of OCC member Prof. Dr. Markus Lappe at the Department of Psychology. The PhD committee is completed by the OCC members Prof. Dr. Rebekka Lencer and Prof. Dr. Heiko Wagner.
In collaboration with the Hertie Foundation (Gemeinnützige Hertie Stiftung) the OCC offers the material for the project "Wir sind Hirnforscher" to primary schools in Münster. The aim of the lesson series designed by the Hertie Foundation is to introduce children to the control center of our body - our brain. The pupils themselves take on the role of brain researchers and, through their own experimentation, find the answers to several exciting questions about the brain. Additionally, our OCC PhD students visit the classes in the end of the project to talk about their own research and the experiments they conduct at the university and to try to answer the pupils' numerous further questions about the brain.
The PhD students Jennifer Pomp and Malte Scherff, who already visited classes that participated in the project at the Kardinal-von-Galen-Schule, the Wartburg Grundschule and the Marienschule, now were interviewed by the Hertie Foundation and asked about their experiences with working with the elementary school children, their motivation to volunteer in the project and the collaboration with the little robot Mr. Tie, who is an integral part of the project. You can find the complete interview here.
A paper titled "Noninvasive stimulation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex modulates emotional face processing" by PhD student Constantin Winker and OCC members Markus Junghöfer, Maimu Rehbein, Carsten Wolters, and Volker Arolt et al. has been published in NeuroImage. The study continues the investigation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) as major hub for positive valence and the possibilities of its modulation by transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). In a previous study (Junghofer, Winker, Rehbein, & Sabatinelli, 2017, Cerebral Cortex) the group presented hemodynamic and electrophysiological evidence for valence specific modulations of emotional scene processing after excitatory and inhibitory tDCS of the vmPFC. Here, they identified that tDCS modulation of vmPFC during emotional face processing results in effects convergent with scene processing, in that excitatory tDCS increased neural reactivity during happy compared to fearful face perception, whereas inhibitory stimulation led to a converse effect. In addition, behavioral data (affect identification of ambiguous expressive faces) revealed a bias toward preferential processing of happy compared to fearful faces after excitatory compared to after inhibitory stimulation.
Motor resonance and imagery in Parkinson’s disease
Our first speaker in the OCC Colloquium Series in the summer semester 2018 is Dr. Ellen Poliakoff from the Body Eyes and Movement (BEAM) Laboratory, University of Manchester, UK.
Time: April 11, 2018 (Wed), 16.15 h
Location: Lecture Hall, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Albert-Schweitzer-Campus 1, Building A9, 2nd Floor, Room 120.074
A paper titled "Delayed Latency of Postural Muscles of Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities" by PhD student José Walter Tolentino-Castro, OCC Member Heiko Wagner and others has been published in Frontiers in Psychology. "It was already known that the brain structures as well as the function of individuals with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) differs to typically developped individuals." José Walter Tolentino-Castro says, "We now wanted to investigate the function of the spinal cord in this population. It is complicated to study the function of the spinal cord without invasive methods. In our study, we used the so called “Wackelkiste” to observe the muscular delay following a lateral perturbation, which is computed on spinal cord level. We found no differences on muscular delay between ID participants and the control group. Our study broadens the knowledge of postural control of ID individuals and shows the necessity to develop interventions to prevent falls." The project was a cooperation between the Department of Movement Science in Münster and the School of Art, Sciences and Humanities at Universidade de São Paulo.
The pupils in the class of teacher Silke Grabbe at the Marienschule Roxel now became early stage brain researchers when they completed the teaching unit „Wir sind Hirnforscher“ designed by the Hertie Foundation. The OCC offers the teaching material for the the 2-week project including the robot „Herr Tie“ to primary and secondary schools in Münster. The robot can move around the room, avoiding obstacles on its own, and he even can change direction at the children's command. Each project can be completed with a question-and-answer session about the brain with OCC PhD students. Interested schools and teachers can contact the OCC coordinator for further information.
| Thesis Defense
PhD for Carina Bodden
We congratulate Carina Bodden on successfully defending her thesis entitled "Why we are who we are: on the effects of different life histories and serotonin transporter genotype on the behavioral and epigenetic profile of mice". The thesis was supervised by Prof. Dr. Norbert Sachser (Department of Behavioural Biology), Prof. Dr. Klaus-Peter Lesch (Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and Psychotherapy, University of Würzburg) and Prof. Dr. Hans-Christian Pape (Institute of Physiology I).
Dr. Katja Mayer from the Institute of Psychology is our second new member in the Otto Creutzfeldt Center this year. Her main research interest is in visual perception and currently she investigates the interactions between processing of optic flow and biological motion as a Post-doc in the group of OCC member Prof. Dr. Markus Lappe. Welcome!
We welcome Prof. Dr. med. Georg Romer as a new member of the Otto Creutzfeldt Center. Since 2013 Georg Romer is the Chair of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy. His research interests include the investigation of mental health problems in early childhood as well as the influence of family environments on mental health risks and resiliency.
| Congratulations
Hans-Christian Pape is the new President of the Humboldt Foundation
We congratulate OCC founding member Prof. Dr. Hans-Christian Pape who was inaugurated as the new president of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Foundation's New Year's reception on January 18, 2018. Prof. Dr. Hans-Christian Pape succeeds Prof. Dr. Helmut Schwarz as the head of the Foundation and was appointed by Federal Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel to a five-year term starting January 1, 2018. In his Inauguration Speech Prof. Dr. Hans-Christian Pape demanded that scientists need to address stronger than before the challenges with which society finds itself currently confronted.
A paper titled “Analyzing the kinematics of hand movements in catching tasks—An online correction analysis of movement toward the target’s trajectory” by OCC PhD student Lena Slupinski and OCC members Marc de Lussanet and Heiko Wagner has been published in the Journal of Behavior Research Methods. In ball catching, the catcher has to guide the hand towards the future trajectory of the moving ball, based on predictions, which are mostly adjusted during the movement. The authors present a method for analyzing the hand movements of the catcher, assessing the time at which the trajectory of the ball is anticipated. This method can be used to quantify anticipatory behavior in interceptive tasks.
A paper titled “Association of Serotonin Transporter Gene AluJb Methylation with Major Depression, Amygdala Responsiveness, 5-HTTLPR/rs25531 Polymorphism, and Stress.” by OCC PhD student Ilona Schneider and OCC members Udo Dannlowski and Weiqi Zhang and others has been published in the Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology. Analyzing methylation rates of an AluJb element in the SLC6A4 promotor in patients with major depression disorder (MDD) and healthy controls, the authors found associations of methylation with MDD, fMRI amygdala reactivity, 5-HTTLPR/rs25531 polymorphism, and recent stress. The results indicate that patients seem to differ in their stress-adaptive epigenetic processes, maybe via endogenous antidepressant-like effects.
