Welcome to the Bangor Imaging Unit (BIU)
The BIU is situated in the Psychology department at Bangor University, UK. Here you will find a collection of pages showing current memebers of the group, their interests and some recent news.
If you wish to know more, please feel free to contact us.
We are currently searching for a Lecturer in the School of Psychology, for more details click here
Recent grant success.
Congratulations to David Linden and Paul Downing for their recent grant capture.
Paul Downing - TMS and fMRI investigations of the action perception brain network
The objective of this research is to understand how multiple brain areas
coordinate their activity in order to perceive and interpret the overt
behaviour of other individuals. We will combine recent developments in
two of the techniques of cognitive neuroscience, in order to draw
conclusions that could not be reached by either method alone. The
general approach is to use transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in
order to briefly, focally (and safely) interrupt the activity in certain
brain sites of interest. We will use functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) to measure changes in brain activity, and in local
patterns of information, that result. This combined approach gives us a
way to systematically measure the remote influences that one region of
the brain network has on others, by discovering what happens when that
region's operations are interrupted. In this way, we hope to inform
computational models that capture key aspects of the brain networks that support social perception.
I remember you...you were angry...
A recent publication by Jackson et al. in the Proceedings of the National Library of Science (PLoS) One has garnered interest from the popular press. The paper, which aims to uncover the neural correlates of the angry faces benefit to working memory, where faces with an angry expression are remembered better than neutral or happy versions, has been picked up by both newspapers, local and international radio. Articles describing the work have already appeared in the Daily Post, and one interview with BBC Radio Wales' 'Good Evening Wales' program has already aired with a further interview on the BBC World Service's 'Science in Action' programme is scheduled for Friday 7th Nov.
Anyone who would like to here the Good Evening Wales interview click here.
Health minister for Wales visits...
Minister for health, Edwina Hart AM, recently visited the University to discuss the University's growing relationship with the NHS. During her visit she met with several members of the School of Psychology and visited the scanning unit.
From left to right: Paul Mullins, Edwina Hart AM, Oliver Turnbull & David Linden.
Recent work...
Cortical activation maps (displayed on flatmap of the patients' anatomy) of a schizophrenic patient during hallucinations and during a localizer condition. From: Oertel, V., Rotarska-Jagiela A., van de Ven, HG., Haanschel, C., Maurer, K. & Linden DEJ. Visual hallucinations in schizophrenia investigated with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Psychiatric Res. Neuroimaging. (2007), 156(3), 269-273.
Opening Event...
The Imaging Unit would like to say a big thank you to all the people who helped organise what turned out to be a very successful opening event. In addition to the festivities we had the opportunity to see plenty of fascinating and entertaining presentations before the final opening ceremony.
