www.psychoinformatics.de/content/pages/research.html
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<title>Research</title>
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<p>Our research covers a broad range from advancing research methodology, to
the actual engineering of readily usable tools, to the application of such
developments to concrete research questions in medicine, psychology, or
cognitive neuroscience — because there is nothing worse than a solution
without a problem.</p>
<h2>Ongoing Projects</h2>
<p>A main research focus lies on studying the representation of information
about, and for interacting with, the environment. We believe that
ecologically valid conclusions about these representations can only be drawn
when they are also studied under conditions of real-life complexity. Hence
our aim is to combine controlled experiments with complex natural stimulation
in order to validate our findings. The second major focus is the development
of tools and workflow capable of managing and processing the large and
versatile dataset that are required to pursue these research aims.</p>
<section id="studyforrest" class="alternate">
<div class='sponsor-logos'>
<img src="/img/logo/lsa.svg" alt="German State of Sachsen-Anhalt Logo" />
<img src="/img/logo/erdf.svg" alt="European Reginal Development Fund Logo" />
</div>
<h3>The studyforrest Project</h3>
<p>This is a long-running project that aims to built a unique resource for
studying the brain's natural behavior. It combines brain imaging with other
data acquisition techniques to capture a versatile recording of the human
response to a prolonged complex natural stimulus, the motion picture
"Forrest Gump".</p>
<p>We invite anyone and everyone to participate in this decentralized effort
to explore the opportunities of open science in neuroimaging. One of our
goals is to document how much (scientific) value can be generated — from the
publication of scientific findings derived from this dataset, algorithms and
methods evaluated on this dataset, and/or extensions of this dataset by the
acquisition and incorporation of new data.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="studyforrest data overview" src="/img/studyforrest_figure.png" />
<p>Overview of functional (top), and structural (middle)
brain imaging data, as well as annotations of the complex real-life
stimulus (bottom) that are available through the studyforrest.org
project.</p>
</div>
<p>Since 2014, a number of datasets have been publicly released for
unrestricted use, covering functional and structural brain imaging, eye
tracking, physiological recordings, and numerous annotations of the
structure of the movie stimulus. For up-to-date information on available
data, funding, and our many collaborators, please see the project
homepage.</p>
<ul class='social-links'>
<li><a class='icon-home' aria-label='Website' href="http://studyforrest.org"></a></li>
<li><a class='icon-twitter' aria-label='Twitter' href="https://twitter.com/studyforrest"></a></li>
<li><a class='icon-github' aria-label='GitHub' href="https://github.com/psychoinformatics-de?q=studyforrest"></a></li>
</ul>
</section>
<section id="datalad" class="alternate">
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<a href='http://www.gesundheitsforschung-bmbf.de/de/2550.php'>
<img src="/img/logo/bmbf.svg" alt="German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Logo" class="squarish" />
</a>
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<h3>DataLad</h3>
<p>Data are key ingredients of science, but interesting data are often
scattered across many different locations, with heterogeneous access methods,
and are packaged in a multitude of structures and formats. This makes it
hard to discover, obtain, and re-use existing data.</p>
<p>DataLad is a software engineering project that aims to deliver a data
management tool that aids data discovery, to simplify and homogenize access
to data across many providers, and to re-share data with a community. One
could think of DataLad as "Git for collections of datasets".</p>
<p>As such, this software is ideally suited for projects like our
<em>studyforrest</em> effort. It applies the successful model of
collaborative, decentralized open source software development to the
domain of managing and sharing (scientific) data.</p>
<div class="figure">
<img alt="DataLad data flow overview" src="/img/datalad_figure.png" />
<p>DataLad facilitates and homogenizes data exchange between peers, and
tracking of resources from data portals. It is data format agnostic and
exposes meta data to ease data discovery. Access to sensitive data is
supported via configurable authentication schemes.</p>
</div>
<p>This project is executed in collaboration with
<a href="http://haxbylab.dartmouth.edu/ppl/yarik.html">Yaroslav Halchenko (Dartmouth College)</a>,
and is co-funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF 1429999,
1912266) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF;
01GQ1411, 01GQ1905) as part of a US-German collaboration in computational
neuroscience (CRCNS). Development was supported by the German federal
state of Saxony-Anhalt and the European Regional Development Fund (Project:
Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences, Imaging Platform), the European
Unions Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant
agreements <a href="https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/945539">Human Brain
Project (SGA3, H2020-EU.3.1.5.3, grant no. 945539)</a>, and <a
href="https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/826421">Virtual Brain Cloud
(H2020-EU.3.1.5.3, grant no. 826421)</a>.</p>
<ul class='social-links'>
<li><a class='icon-home' aria-label='Website' href="http://datalad.org"></a></li>
<li><a class='icon-twitter' aria-label='Twitter' href="https://twitter.com/datalad"></a></li>
<li><a class='icon-github' aria-label='GitHub' href="https://github.com/datalad"></a></li>
</ul>
</section>
<section id="sfb1451-inf" class="alternate">
<div class='sponsor-logos'>
<img src="/img/logo/dfg.svg" alt="Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Logo" />
</div>
<h3>Information management for research on key mechanism of motor control in health and disease (SFB1451)</h3>
<p>In this project we provide expertise for access, description, and
modeling of data collected in the individual projects of the collaborative
research center, as well as the two core data acquisition projects.
This includes assessing general workflows, resource
requirements, and data analysis processes to capture between-project
differences that may impact data comparability and re-usability across
projects. We provide tools, services and training to help projects
align their research output to facilitate data analysis for extracting
common activity patterns and mechanisms underlying motor behaviours across
species, and promote data-driven computational modeling.</p>
<p>This project is performed in collaboration with
<a href="https://zoologie.uni-koeln.de/arbeitsgruppen/ag-daun/inhalt/mitarbeiterinnen/prof-dr-silvia-daun">
Sylvia Daun (FZJ/U Cologne)</a>, and
<a href="https://neuroscience.uni-koeln.de/neuroforum/ag-nawrot">Martin Nawrot
(U Cologne)</a>. It is funded by the German Research Council
(DFG) as a part of the Collaborative Research Center <a
href="http://sfb1451.de">SFB 1451</a> in Cologne.</p>
<ul class='social-links'>
<li><a class='icon-home' aria-label='Website' href="http://sfb1451.de"></a></li>
</ul>
</section>
<h2>Completed Projects</h2>
<section id="primary-rewards" class="alternate">
<div class='sponsor-logos'>
<img src="/img/logo/dfg.svg" alt="Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Logo" />
</div>
<h3>Anticipation, Processing, and Control of Primary Rewards</h3>
<p>An investigation into the perception and neural representation of primary
rewards (i.e. tastes) of their visual correspondences (secondary rewards)
and of their (mis)matched combination in the human brain. The aims of this
project are: 1) to identify the motivational, hedonic, and category-specific
representations (sweet, sour etc.) of primary rewards; 2) to identify the
influence of secondary reinforcers on these representations; and 3) identify
the effects of over-learned and novel visuo-gustatory correspondences on
these and their functional interplay by means of univariate fMRI-approaches
(plus functional connectivity), classification analysis, and functional
hyperalignment.</p>
<p>This project is a collaboration with
<a href="http://www.ipsy.ovgu.de/Abteilungen/Biologische+Psychologie.html">Toemme Noesselt (Magdeburg University)</a>,
and is funded by the German Research Council (DFG) as a part of the
Collaborative Research Center <a href="http://www.sfb779.de/en/">SFB 779</a>
in Magdeburg.</p>
<ul class='social-links'>
<li><a class='icon-home' aria-label='Website' href="http://www.sfb779.de/en/a15n.html"></a></li>
</ul>
</section>
<section id="perceptual-relevance" class="alternate">
<div class='sponsor-logos'>
<img src="/img/logo/dfg.svg" alt="Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Logo" />
</div>
<h3>Tracing the Template: Investigating the Representation of Perceptual Relevance</h3>
<p>In this effort we seek to identify the nature of attentional preferences
of cognitive behavior, in terms of function (how it affects our behavior),
physiology (how it is implemented in the brain), and time (how it is
affected by learning/selection history). Specifically, what preferences can
it hold, how do these change as a function of experience, and what are the
neural codes underlying these representations?</p>
<p>This project is a collaboration with
<a href="http://www.ipsy.ovgu.de/allgpsych.html">S. Pollmann (Magdeburg University)</a>,
M. Eimer (Birkbeck College, University of London), and C.N.L. Olivers
(Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). It is co-funded by the German Research
Foundation (DFG; PO 548/16-1).</p>
</section>
<section id="neural-spaces" class="alternate">
<div class='sponsor-logos'>
<img src="/img/logo/bmbf.svg" alt="German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) Logo" class="squarish" />
</div>
<h3>Building Common High-dimensional Models of Neural Representational Spaces</h3>
<p>It is possible to decode information from brain activation patterns with
multivariate analysis procedures. Despite this fact, little is known how
neural codes vary across individuals. The main disadvantage of current
decoding approaches is that they have to be built for each brain
individually, because it is difficult to bring two brains into alignment at
a fine scale. This project developed methods that allow for the detection
and description of common neural representations. Individual brain activity
patterns are projected into a common high-dimensional space, to build models
of representational spaces of cortical areas that are valid for a range of
stimuli and across individuals. This includes complex cortical networks that
do not respond consistently on direct stimulation (e.g. social
cognition).</p>
<p>A collaboration with the groups of James V. Haxby (Dartmouth College,
USA) and Peter J. Ramadge (Princeton University, USA), this project was
funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (01GQ1112)
as well as the US National Science Foundation (1129764).</p>
</section>
<section id="advanced-analysis" class="alternate">
<div class='sponsor-logos'>
<img src="/img/logo/cbbs.svg" alt="Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences Logo" class="squarish" />
</div>
<h3>Advanced fMRI-based Analysis of Human Sensory Cortex</h3>
<p>This project focused on the development and validation of new
experimental and neuro-computational approaches for the investigation of the
neuronal processing of sensory input to the human visual cortex. Novel
approaches to decode cortical processing with functional magnetic resonance
tomography (fMRI) are developed and applied to the analysis of the visual
cortex. On the one hand spatial high-resolution fMRI approaches are
established, validated, and optimized. On the other hand, multivariate
data-analysis approaches are adapted, optimized and applied to the analysis
of fMRI data sets. These methodological developments open up a wide range of
applications, not only to deepen our understanding of the healthy visual
system, but also to investigate pathophysiology and plasticity of the visual
system for the optimization of future therapeutic strategies.</p>
<p>A collaboration with Prof. Michael Hoffmann (Visual Processing Lab,
Eye-Clinic, Magdeburg), this project was funded by the federal state of
Saxony-Anhalt as part of the project "Center for Behavioral Brain
Sciences".</p>
</section>
<section id="mvpa-7T" class="alternate">
<div class='sponsor-logos'>
<img src="/img/logo/dfg.svg" alt="Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft Logo" />
</div>
<h3>The Role of the Posterior Parietal Cortex for Trans- and Intra Dimensional Feature Binding — Multivariate Pattern Analyses of High-field(7T) fMRI Data</h3>
<p>A collaboration with Prof. Stefan Pollmann (Experimental Psychology,
Institute of Psychology II, Magdeburg), this project was funded by the
German Research Foundation (DFG; PO 548/10-1).</p>
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