At the moment we are focusing on three projects:
• An ESRC-funded project (with Steve Tipper) to use MVPA and other fMRI methods in order to investigate the human "mirror system". Are there brain areas for which local patterns of BOLD activity distinguish among different actions, across the visual and motor domains? (e.g. see this paper).
• A Leverhulme-funded project using offline theta-burst TMS methods. We are examining how disruption of activity in various nodes of the proposed human "action perception network" changes both the BOLD activity in other parts of the network as well as action-perception behavioural performance.
• A new collaborative project (with Kim Graham, Cardiff) that is funded by the BBSRC will focus on using fMRI (primarily with MVPA) to assess the perceptual functions of the medial temporal lobes, and to compare these directly to the functions of category-selective areas of the extrastriate cortex.
Contact: p.downing@bangor.ac.uk
Lab News:
Winter 11/12
We have a new article coming out in Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience:
Oosterhof N, Tipper S, Downing P. (in press). Viewpoint
(in)dependence of action representations: an MVPA study.
Congratulations to Dr Martijn van
Koningsbruggen, who has accepted a postdoc position at
CIMeC in Rovereto, Italy!
Congratulations to Dr Nick Oosterhof, who
passed his viva with no
corrections!
He is off in January to a postdoc at Harvard and CIMeC.
Fall 2011
We have a new article coming out in J.
Neurophysiology entitled Mapping brain activation and information
during category-specific visual working memory
Summer 2011
John Kontaris and Paul Downing have a new article coming
out in Perception titled Reflections on the hand:
the use of a mirror highlights the contributions of
perceived and interpreted representations in the rubber
hand illusion.
Spring 2011
A PhD studentship is available in the
lab.
John Taylor and Paul Downing have a new
review article coming out in Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience titled Division of labor between lateral and ventral
extrastriate representations of faces, bodies, and
objects
Paul Downing and Marius Peelen have a new
Discussion target article coming out in Cognitive
Neuroscience on The role of occipitotemporal body-selective
regions in person perception.
Nick Oosterhof, Tobias Wiestler and Joern
Diedrichsen released version 0.2 of "surfing", a Matlab toolbox for
surface-based voxel selection. This toolbox provides
functionality for surface-based multivariate information
mapping of the cerebral cortex using functional Magnetic
Resonance Imaging data.
Congratulations to John Taylor, who will be starting a 3
year postdoc position this summer in Cardiff!
Winter 10/11
We've had a paper recently accepted at Brain and Cognition:
Wiggett A, Hudson M, Tipper S, Downing P. Learning associations between action and
perception: Effects of incompatible training on body part
and spatial priming
Autumn 2010
Check out the new surface-based voxel selection toolbox for
MVPA.
Summer 2010
Congratulations to Dr John Taylor, who passed his viva with no
corrections!
We've had a paper recently accepted at Journal of
Cognitive Neuroscience:
Wiggett A, Downing P. Representation of action in
occipitotemporal cortex
Spring 2010
We've had a paper recently accepted at J
Neurophysiology:
Oosterhof N, Wiggett A, Diedrichsen J, Tipper S, Downing P.
Surface-based information mapping reveals crossmodal
vision-action representations in human parietal and
occipitotemporal cortex
We've had a paper recently accepted at
Neuroimage:
Oosterhof N, Wiestler T, Downing P, Diedrichsen J. A
comparison of volume-based and surface-based multi-voxel
pattern analysis
We've had a paper recently accepted at Brain and
Cognition:
Taylor J, Roberts M, Downing P, Thierry G.
Functional characterization of the extrastriate body area
based on the N1 ERP component.
Congratulations to Nick Oosterhof, who received a travel
grant and a speaking slot for the upcoming CAOS
conference.
Winter 09/10
Welcome to Dr Martijn van Koningsbruggen, who is starting a
2-year postdoc on our Leverhulme-funded TMS/fMRI project.
We've had a paper recently accepted at J
Neurophys:
Taylor J, Wiggett A, Downing P. fMRI–Adaptation
Studies of Viewpoint Tuning in the Extrastriate and
Fusiform Body Areas. in press, Journal of Neurophysiology.
Fall 2009
Welcome to John Kontaris, who is starting his PhD in the
lab.
Paul Downing and Nick Oosterhof will be at SFN in Chicago,
presenting work on visual-motor congruency in extrastriate
cortex, and MVPA work on the "mirror system" -- Posters
168.6/W13 and 577.13/FF132
Summer 2009
Congratulations to Nick Oosterhof on receiving a Boehringer
Ingelheim Fonds PhD Fellowship!
Paul Downing (with co-Is Steve Tipper, Bob Rafal, and
Martin Giese) was awarded a 2-year grant from the
Leverhulme Trust to conduct TMS and fMRI studies of the
action-perception network.
We've had two papers accepted recently at
Neuropsychologia -- see Publications link at the
right.