Newsletter 8
Impressions from the CCLM Summer School 2014
October 1, 2014
Collegium Generale: Top-Level Research
The Collegium Generale organises a series of lectures about top level research
at the University of Bern. Prof. Dr. Katharina Henke introduces the CCLM on the
19th of December 2014.
New CCLM Members
Wilhelm Klatt, PhD student in Janek Lobmaier‘s
team.
Ferenc Kemény, postdoc in
Beat Meier‘s team.
Julia Schneider, PhD
student in Trix Cacchione‘s
team
Nicole Oberer, PhD student
in Claudia Roebers‘ team.
Niamh Oeri, PhD student in Claudia
Roeber‘s team
Denise De Jong, research assistant
in René Müri‘s team.
Berner Schlaf-Wach Symposium, October 2014
On Thursday, 23rd of October, and Friday, 24th of October, the 18th Berner
Schlaf-Wach Symposium takes place at the Inselspital in Bern. The first day
covers clinical topics including aspects from chronobiology, innovative therapies
obstructive sleep apnea, paediatric insomnia, and the science of dreaming. The
second day has a more experimental orientation as this is the day the Centre
for Experimental Neurology (Zentrum für Experimentelle Neurologie, ZEN) is
formally inaugurated. The centre hosts a state of the art laboratory for fundamental research in the area of sleep and wakefulness, including optogenetic
methods.
Congratulations to...
Beat Meier, whose request for a
SCIEX fellowship for Ferenc Kemény
was granted for the project “Multimodal sequences in task sequence
learning”.
Ines Mürner-Lavanchy, for her
doctoral promotion.
Media Response
UniAktuell reports on Ines MürnerLavanchy and her research as a part
of a series about young researchers
leading up to the „Nacht der Forschung.
4th CCLM-Colloquium, 31st of October
Upcoming Events
23./24. October: 18. Berner SchlafWach Symposium. Inselspital Bern.
31. October: CCLM Kolloquium.
Topic: „Psychosis - From pathogenesis
to treatment“
15.-19. November: Society for Neuroscience Meeting. Washington, DC.
If you would like to take advantage of this platform and are interested in organising your own symposium in 2015 please contact Simon Ruch.
Note that also guest speakers are highly welcome!
New Research Group: Daria Knoch and Social Neuroscience
Daria Knoch is a professor for social psychology and social
neuroscience. Her research team investigates social actions and
reactions using cognitive and neuroscientific methods. Daria
Knoch is a pioneer in the area of social neuroscience and regularly publishes innovative research in high-impact journals such
as Nature Neuroscience, Science, and PNAS. The
Department of Social Psychology and Social Neuroscience
stands for modern social psychology that includes biological foundations for
social experiences and actions. Prof. Knoch‘s team complements the CCLM in
research as well as in teaching in areas such as cognition, learning, and memory
by providing a social context.
Current areas of research are the neurobiological foundations of learning about
an interaction partner‘s trustworthiness and how the volume in certain brain
areas crucial to social cognition affects social interactions. A further area of interest is how working memory training affects social interactions.
We cordially welcome Daria Knoch and her group in the CCLM!
Together Against Forgetfulness: New Offer by the Service Centre
CCLM‘S Service Centre now offers cognitive trainings tailored to the demands
of elderly people. The first training took place in September and was already fully booked. For groups of no more than 20 persons the course provides
knowledge on what working memory is, how it changes when you get older
and how you can preserve your cognitive functions. In addition there are opportunities to exchange experiences with other participants and to train with the
programme „BrainTwister“.
The next courses take place in January and March 2015 and there are still open
slots. For attendees of the University for Seniors there is a reduction in price. If
you are interested, feel free to write an e-mail to
[email protected].
10. December: Introduction of the
CCLM in the context of the Collegium Generale about research centres
in Switzerland. University of Bern,
AudiMax
24./25. January 2015: Joint SSNCNB meeting. Hochschulzentrum von
Roll, University of Bern.
Recent Publications
Bobst, C., & Lobmaier, J. S.(2014).
Is preference for ovulatory female‘s
faces associated with men‘s testosterone levels? Hormones and Behavior,
66, 478-492.
Bombari, D., Preuss, N. & Mast, F.W. (in
press). Lateralized processing of faces:
The role of features, configurations and
familiarity. Swiss Journal of Psychology.
Brea, J., Urbanczik, R., & Senn, W.
(2014). A normative theory of forgetting: Lessons from the fruit fly.
PloS Computational Biology, 10(6):
e1003640.
Duss, S. B., Reber, T. P., Hänggi, J.,
Schwab, S., Wiest, R., Müri,
R. M., Brugger, P., Gutbrod, K., Henke,
K. (in press). Unconscious relational encoding depends on hippocampus. Brain.
Eggen, C., Huber, O., Bär, A.,
Huber, O. W., Perrig, W. J.,
Müri, R., & Gutbrod, K. (in press).
Impairments in an early stage of the
decision-making process in patients
with ventromedial prefrontal damage:
preliminary results. Neurocase.
Everts, R., Wapp, M., Burren, Y., Kell
ner-Weldon, F., El-Koussy, M., Jann,
K., Delameilleur Lenoir, J., Michel, P.,
Schroth, G. (2014). Cognitive and emotional effects of carotid stenosis. Swiss
Medical Weekly. 144: W13970.
CCLM Summer School - A Retrospection
Recent publications
During the warmest and sunniest week of our summer, from the 10th to the
14th July 2014, the first Summer School organised by the Swiss Graduate
School for Cognition, Learning, and Memory took place in Weggis at the shore
of lake Lucerne. The topic was „Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology of Cognition, Learning, and Memory„ 26 PhD students from the CCLM graduate school
and from abroad discussed memory, methods, and the beauty of the Swiss
Alps. Three speakers (introduced below) held lectures about their own field of
research.
Friedrich, J., Urbanczik, R., & Senn, W.
(2014). Code-specific learning rules improve action selection by populations of
spiking neurons. International Journal
of Neural Systems, 24(5): 1450002.
Prof. Bradley Postle is a professor at the University of WisconsinMadison. He held a keynote presentation about the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of human working memory, individual
differences in brain activation during working memory tasks and
age-related differences, and the neurophysiology and the role of
control of interference during working memory tasks.
Prof. Silvia Bunge is a professor at the University of California
at Berkely and held a keynote presentation about the neuroanatomy and neurophysiology of human brain development and
experience-based brain plasticity. Her areas of research are neural
mechanisms, development, and plasticity of higher cognitive functions in humans.
Prof. Nikolai Axmacher is a professor at the the University of Bonn
and held a keynote presentation about the neuroanatomy and
neurophysiology of how information is encoded, stored, and retrieved in human memory, as well as about the social and emotional factors of memory formation.
Anonymous Feedback from Participants
„What I liked was the opportunity to get to know the other PhD students, the
opportunity to meet these lecturers, and the invaluable exchange of ideas for
my project that this gave me. I am really happy that I got the chance to participate.“
„I liked the whole atmoshpere. The location was spectacular, the group was
very open and welcoming, the professors were sympathetic and sociable.
Scientific exchange was fostered from all sides and easily possible. The second
session where professors talked about their current research was awesome.
More please!“
„I wish to emphasize that I hardly ever encountered a group that was so
open, interested, and friendly and helpful to each other. I am convinced that
this is largely due to the organizers: They did an exceptional job at organizing
the Summer School in a way that reduced the usual wariness that may occur
when meeting total strangers. The structure gave us plenty of opportunities for
interesting and stimulating discussions with lecturers as well as the other PhD
students. I always felt welcome and respected (which, unfortunately, is not as
self-evident as one may assume). Also, I believe that the organizers were great
examples to everyone in how they interacted with each other, the keynote
lecturers and us, so we quickly adapted to the low-threshold approachability of
everyone.“
Martarelli, C. S., Gurtner, L., & Mast, F.
W. (in press). School-age children show
a bias toward fantasy classifications after playing a platform game. Psychology
of Popular Media Culture.
Meier, B. (2013). Semantic representation of synaesthesia. (2013). Theoria et
Historia Scientiarum. 10, 125-134.
Meier, B., Matter, S., Baumann,
B., Walter, S., & König, T.
(2014). From episodic to habitual
prospective memory: ERP-evidence for
a linear transition. Frontiers in Human
Neuroscience, 8: 489.
Meier, N., Perrig, W. J., & Koenig,
T. (in press). Is excessive
EEG beta activity associated with delinquent behavior in adult subjects with
ADHD symptomatology? International
Journal of Psychopathology.
Meyer, A., Wapp, M., Strik, W., & Moggi, F. (in press). Association between
drinking goal and alcohol use one year
after residential treatment: a mulicenter
study. Journal of Addictive Disorders.
Mürner-Lavanchy, I., Steinlin, M.,
Kiefer, C., Weisstanner,
C., Ritter, B. C., Perrig, W., & Everts,
R. (in press). Delayed development of
neural language organization in very
preterm born children. Developmental
Neuropsychology.
Mürner-Lavanchy I, Steinlin M,
Nelle M, Rummel C, Perrig W,
Schroth G, Everts R. Delay of cortical
thinning in very preterm born children.
Early Human Development, 90, 443450
Rammsayer, T. H., Indermühle, R., & Troche, S. J. (2014). Psychological refractory period in introverts and extraverts.
Personality and Individual Differences,
63, 10-15.
Opinions From Our Own CCLM-Graduate Students
Recent Publications
„A highlight? The whole week was a highlight!“
It was great! The size of the group was ideal
as it was quite small which lead to a sense
of community rather quickly and you started
talking to each other easily. Given the small
group size it was also easy talking to the
professors informally, which lead to completely different conversations and to different
approaches for viewing the own area of
scientific interest. There were many students
with completely different back grounds,
some even from other countries, and it was interesting to see that there are
so many ways of approaching memory-based research. Meeting other PhD
students was also helpful, to see that we all share the same problems and that
frustration is just a part of the process was an invaluable experience.
It is hard to name just one favourite thing about the week. The programme
granted the perfect mixture of learning and leisure . The whole week was planned carefully and with a great attention for details – you clearly noticed that a
lot of time and effort were spent planning and organising that week.
Roebers, C. M., & Jäger, K. (2014).
Metacognitive monitoring and control
in elementary school children: Their
interrelations and their role for test
performance. Learning and Individual
Differences, 29, 141-149.
(Else Schneider from Katrin Henke’s group is interested in the implicit processing of time and
space and is currently planning a study in which animated horses play a pivotal role.)
Troche, S. J., Wagner, F. L., Völke,
A., Roebers, C. M., &
Rammsayer, T. H. (2014). Individual
differences in working memory explain the relationship between general
discrimination ability and psychometric
intelligence. Intelligence, 44, 40-50
„Talking about science while watching the sun set“
It was a nice week with a dense programme,
but not so dense to make you feel stressed
out. It was an excellent mixture of opportunities for learning and exchanging views
and knowledge but also of opportunities for
having fun. This mixture served as an ideal
platform to motivate oneself and to develop
new perspectives. The week itself was perfect
– the organisation was great, the infrastructure was great, and the invited speakers
were great as well. The mixture of the different people from different countries
with different backgrounds gave impulses that were not directly beneficial for
my thesis but I gained new insights into methods, problems in science, problems
occurring during your time as a doctoral student. During the week I also talked
to the professors – that was incredibly nice: Those “moments between”, during
dinner, swimming, or hiking where you could talk rather informally to the professors about methods, procedures, and ideas.
I gained a boost in motivation and new insights. It also taught me to have a
look at my topic from a different point of view in order to gain new insights.
(Emanuel Feurer from Claudia Roebers’ group writes his thesis about how children’s perception of
their own cognitive abilities changes as they make the transition from kindergarten to school and
is presently occupied with analysing “big data”)
Announcement Summer School 2015
The Summer School 2015 takes place from the 23rd to the 27th of June, again
in Weggis. The topic will be a continuation of this and next term‘s topic in the
CCLM Graduate School: „Cognition, Learning, and Memory: Comparative and
Evolutionary Perspectives.“
Roebers, C. M. & Jäger, K. (2014). The
relative importance of fine motor skills,
intelligence, and executive functions for
first grader`s reading and spelling skills.
Perspectives on Language and Literacy,
2, 13-17.
Stauffer, C. C., Troche, S. J., Schweizer,
K. & Rammsayer, T. H. (2014). Intelligence is related to specific processes
in visual change detection: Fixed-links
modeling of hit rate and reaction time.
Intelligence, 43, 8-20.
Urbanczik, R., & Senn, W. (2014). Learning by the dendritic prediction of somatic spiking. Neuron, 81(3), 521–528.
Wagner, F. L., Rammsayer, T. H.,
Schweizer, K., & Troche, S. J. (2014).
Relations between the attentional
blink and aspects of psychometric
intelligence: A fixed-links modeling
approach. Personality and Individual
Differences, 58, 122-127.
Walter, S.,& Meier, B. (2014). How
important is importance for prospective
memory? A review. Frontiers in Psychology, 5: 657
Wantz, A. L. Borst, G., Mast, F. W.,
& Lobmaier, J. S. (in press). Colors in
mind: A novel paradigm to investigate
pure color imagery. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory,
and Cognition
Focus on the Necessity of the Hippocampus for Unconscious Memories
Textbooks divide between human memory systems based on consciousness.
Hippocampus is thought to support only conscious encoding, while neocortex supports both conscious and unconscious encoding. We tested whether
processing modes, not consciousness, divide between memory systems in
three neuroimaging experiments with amnesic patients and healthy controls.
Examined processing modes were single item versus relational encoding with
only relational encoding hypothesized to depend on hippocampus. Participants
encoded and later retrieved either single words or new relations between
words. Consciousness of encoding was excluded by subliminal (invisible) word
presentation. Amnesic patients and controls performed equally well on the
single item task activating prefrontal cortex. But only the controls succeeded on
the relational task activating the hippocampus, while amnesic patients failed as
a group. Hence, unconscious relational encoding, but not unconscious single item encoding, depended on hippocampus. Yet, three patients performed
normally on unconscious relational encoding in spite of amnesia capitalizing on
spared hippocampal tissue and connections to language cortex. This pattern of
results suggests that processing modes divide between memory systems, while
consciousness divides between levels of function within a memory system.
The latter finding supports the more general notion that evolution brought
forth brain regions that are functionally specialised for certain tasks. These
„expert-areas“ retain their expertise on each level of function from unconscious
to conscious. The spread and coherence of activity whithin a functionally specialised area determines the degree of awareness that we are having about the
mental product of this processing.
Upper panel: Subliminally presented word pairs activate the hippocampus.
Lower panel: Hippocampus is again active when synonyms to unconsciously encoded words were retrieved.
Imprint
© 2014, CCLM
The newsletter is released quarter-annually. Please send material for publication
(general news, new members, new publications (with CCLM affiliation), awards,
job offers, images and more) to [email protected].
Text and Layout: Jasmin Nussbaumer
Lectorship: Katharina Henke
Images: CCLM or indicated
Author Information
Katharina Henke, (Department of Psychology) investigates learning, memory, and
consciousness. Special interest
is the hippocampus.
René Müri, (Department of
Neurology) examines relationships between attention,
visual and perceptive deficits,
working memory and other
forms of memory and language functions.
Reference and Figure:
Duss, S. B., Reber, T. P., Hänggi, J., Schwab,
S., Wiest, R., Müri, R. M., Brugger, P., Gutbrod, K., Henke, K. (in press). Unconscious
relational encoding depends on hippocampus. Brain.