News

Evening people show enhanced fear acquisition, which may increase the risk to develop anxiety

Researchers resorted to the classic Pavlovian paradigm of fear conditioning to study the association between chronotype and fear responses in healthy humans.

Newborn hearing analysis can predict neurophysiological development at 12 months

Study shows an association between auditory processing and developmental outcomes in infants, crucial for the early detection of neurodevelopmental disorders.

Do expectant fathers and mothers experience pregnancy differently?

A study has shown that there are neural and psychological differences between men and women during pregnancy.

Can we self-regulate our brain through training?

A study of neurofeedback reveals that the behavioural effects seem to be the same whether real or sham feedback is given.

Can highly superior autobiographic memory enhance creativity?

Constructive episodic processes relevant to creative thinking are not enhanced in individuals with highly superior autobiographical memory performance.

Do women show greater engagement for multitasking?

A study involving 167 UK participants showed that women believed to be consistently stronger on multitasking than men.

Does age change the dream recall?

Study reveals that there are no relevant differences between dream recall in young adults and in the elderly.

Academic studies on claimed past-life memories

Did you know that most studies on claimed past-life memories were carried out mainly in Asian countries?

Empathy in couples

Understanding the adaptative functioning of couples is something crucial considering the harmful consequences of situations of domestic violence.

Choosing the usual or taking a chance?

We always choose the same route back home, but one day, alerted about traffic restrictions, we decide to risk an alternative route. What drives us to make this decision?

Dream and daydream: differences and similarities

Did you know that daydreams reflect events from the previous two days and “night” dreams resemble a fictional plot?

Does your dog have social skills?

A study suggests that viewing the owner’s face works as a positive social reinforcement for dogs. Learn more about this and other surprising results about “man’s best friend”.

Cognition & Movement

Giorgia Committeri published in the scope of the research project 336/18 – Research -Inspired Cognitive Empowerment: Modulating Episodic Memory through Egocentric Navigational Training (MEMENT), supported by the BIAL Foundation, the paper Automatic coding of environmental distance for walking-related locomotion in the foot-related sensory-motor system: A TMS study on macro-affordances in Neuropsychologia.

When our hearts beat together

In the scope of a project supported by the BIAL Foundation 87/12 – Neurobiological correlates of empathy in couples: A study of central and peripheral measures, the research team led by Joana Coutinho published the paper When our hearts beat together: Cardiac synchrony as an entry point to understand dyadic co‐regulation in couples in the journal Psychophysiology.

The BIAL Foundation has received 395 applications

Did you know that the BIAL Foundation as received 395 applications from 29 countries to the Grants programme for Scientific Research 2020/21 and 85 were approved?

Brain Sciences 2020 Young Investigator Award

Olivia Gosseries, principal investigator of project 261/18 - Phenomenological experience and neurophysiological correlates of shamanic trance in healthy individuals, supported by the BIAL Foundation, was one of the winners of the Brain Sciences 2020 Young Investigator Award.

Ana João Rodrigues wins an ERC grant

Ana João Rodrigues, researcher at the Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), School of Medicine, University of Minho, Portugal and principal of investigator of the research project 30/16 - Exploring the neural basis of motivation, supported by the BIAL Foundation, was awarded with an European Research Council grant receiving around 2 million euros to understand how the brain encodes perceives and encodes pleasure and aversion.

Language recovery after a perinatal stroke

Antoni Rodriguez-Fornells, principal researcher of project “244/14 - Induced brain plasticity after perinatal stroke: structural and functional connectivity”, supported by the BIAL Foundation, published the paper Signatures of brain plasticity supporting language recovery after perinatal arterial ischemic stroke in the journal Brain & Language.

The near-death-experiences features

In the scope of the research project “Characterization of “Near-Death Experiences” through the comparison of experiencers and non-experiencers’ particularities: inter-individual differences in cognitive characteristics and susceptibility to false memories” supported by the BIAL Foundation, the research team of the University of Liège led by Steven Laureys published the paper The Near-Death Experience Content (NDE-C) scale: Development and psychometric validation in the journal Consciousness and Cognition.

Neurocognitive explorations of spiritual experience in Frontiers in Psychology

Joseph Glicksohn and Tal Dotan Ben-Soussan, team members of the research project 228/14 - Pushing consciousness and selfhood towards their boundaries - An EEG neurophenomenological study, published the paper Immersion, Absorption, and Spiritual Experience: Some Preliminary Findings in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.

Fear expressions of dogs under analysis in Scientific Reports

The article Fear expressions of dogs during New Year fireworks: a video analysis has been published in Scientific Reports. This paper presents some of the main findings from project 69/16 - The potential effect of behavioral stimulation on social competence in dogs (via endogenous oxytocin release), supported by the BIAL Foundation and coordinated by Anna Kis.

Paper published in Cerebral Cortex

In the scope of the research project 347/18 - Driving synaptic plasticity in motor-to-visual neural pathways to enhance action prediction, supported by the BIAL Foundation, the research team led by Alessio Avenanti published the paper Transcranial magnetic stimulation over the human medial posterior parietal cortex disrupts depth encoding during reach planning in the journal Cerebral Cortex.

Project supported by the BIAL Foundation published in Nature Communications

Zoltan Dienes and Peter Lush, researchers of project 163/18 - Effects of a short-term mindfulness intervention on hypnotisability and mental health, supported by the BIAL Foundation, published the paper Trait phenomenological control predicts experience of mirror synaesthesia and the rubber hand illusion in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

Results of a project funded by the BIAL Foundation presented in NeuroImage

The article Face space representations of movement has been published in NeuroImage. This paper presents some of the main findings from project 27/16 - How do brains encode the distinctive movements of facial expressions?, supported by the BIAL Foundation and led by Nicholas Furl.

The quest of physiological markers for the experience of pain

Researcher: Elia Valentini - Department of Psychology & Centre for Brain Science, University of Essex Summary: The aim of this project is to improve measurement of the human experience of pain by investigating a combination of psychophysical and physiological responses during mild noxious stimulation. More specifically, we want to investigate how sensitive and specific to pain the brain oscillatory responses are. We use EEG as the main technique, but we are keen to collaborate with neuroscientists using fMRI, autonomic measures and brain stimulation as well as with computational neuroscientists. A clinical collaborator would also be very much welcome.

EEG investigation of hypnosis and decision-making

Researcher: Rinaldo Livio Perri - University Niccolò Cusano Rome, Italy Summary: I work in the field of hypnosis and cognitive neuroscience. In particular, I adopt the event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the effect of the hypnotic suggestions on sensory processing and cognitive performance. I am an expert in decision-making and proactive brain processes before the stimulus administration (e.g., the perceptual, prefrontal and premotor readiness during the expectancy stage). I could help colleagues to properly analyze the ERP signal in the pre-stimulus stage of processing. Also, I would be happy to share my EEG data for re-analyzing them in the frequency domain (e.g., wavelet or coherence analysis in the hypnosis research). Feel free to contact me for any question! More information on my papers: https://scholar.google.it/citations?user=-8e_V64AAAAJ&hl=it Possible collaborations: neuroscientist with experience in the EEG frequency analysis Email: perri.rinaldo@gmail.com

Transparent Psi Project - looking for collaborators

Summary: We are running a fully transparent, expert consensus-base multilab replication of Bem’s (2011) experiment 1. The project features state of the art methods to maximize transparency and study integrity. The study involves a computerized experiment taking about 20 minutes per session. Group testing is possible in a computer lab, no specialized equipment needed. Labs are expected to recruit at least 100 participants. Participants will be exposed to images with explicit erotic/sexual content in the experiment. No financial compensation is required for the participants. Data collection is expected to take place in the 2020 fall semester. Every material is provided for ethics/IRB submissions and data collection in English (translation of materials might be necessary by the collaborators). The study is pre-registered and the manuscript is accepted in principle for publication in the journal Royal Society Open Science. All collaborators who meet the minimum sample size criterion will get authorship on this paper reporting the results of the replication study. More information in the preprint: https://psyarxiv.com/uwk7y/ Indicate interest in the collaboration via the following form: https://tinyurl.com/tpp-labs With any question contact the lead investigator: Dr. Zoltan Kekecs, kekecs.zoltan@gmail.com

Cognitive control and learning

Researcher: Ignacio Obeso, Ph.D. / CINAC - HM Puerta del Sur Summary: The aim of our projects is to understand the behavioral and neural mechanisms used to learn how humans establish adaptive behaviour in changing contexts. More specifically, we want to decipher how stopping abilities are initially learned and later executed under automatic control. We use task-related fMRI, brain stimulation and clinical models to test our predictions in laboratory settings as well as online home-based paradigms. Possible collaborations: computational scientist Email contact: i.obesomartin@gmail.com https://iobesomartin.wixsite.com/cognitivecontrol