> Breakthrough improves brain-function understanding
Breakthrough improves brain-function understanding
Contact:
John McDonald, jmcd@sfu.ca, 1.858.534.9580 (California)
Jessica Green, jgreenb@sfu.ca, 604.619.2480 (cell)
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
John McDonald, jmcd@sfu.ca, 1.858.534.9580 (California)
Jessica Green, jgreenb@sfu.ca, 604.619.2480 (cell)
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
April 3, 2008
Two SFU neuroscientists have made a major breakthrough in human brain-function research that opens the door to actually discovering brain activity as it is happening. It offers a promising new way to investigate disorders, including autism, dementia, depression and anxiety.
John McDonald, associate professor and Canada Research Chair in cognitive neuroscience, and PhD student Jessica Green have successfully used electroencephalography (EEG) to pinpoint, in space and time, the neural activities involved in paying attention.
Until now, neuroscientists studying human brain function have used electroencephalography to show when brain activity occurs and functional neuro-imaging to indicate where it is occurring. But researchers have been unable to determine both the time and the location of brain activity concurrently because the two detection methods measure very different things – electrical activity and blood flow.
McDonald says that a new way of analyzing EEG led to his and Green’s results, which are summarized in the April issue of Public Library of Science Biology http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060081.
The pair used a signal-processing technique called beamforming, which was originally used for radar and sonar. The technique enabled the duo to decipher the timing and sequence of brain activity coinciding with an individual’s attention to different visual objects in his/her environment.
“The ability to identify human brain activities in both space and time is an important achievement in cognitive neuroscience,” says McDonald. He and Green have high-hopes for future brain-function research using this new technique.
“The ability to examine both the locations of neural activity and the dynamics of communication between brain regions with a low-cost, non-invasive methodology is relevant to researchers in all areas of cognitive research,” says Green. “EEG provides us with such a method. This technique could be used to investigate changes in memory that occur with normal aging compared to dementias or to examine changes in cognition that result from disorders such as depression and anxiety.”
Note: McDonald lives in Coquitlam; Green resides in New Westminster.
— 30 — (electronic photos available on request)
John McDonald, associate professor and Canada Research Chair in cognitive neuroscience, and PhD student Jessica Green have successfully used electroencephalography (EEG) to pinpoint, in space and time, the neural activities involved in paying attention.
Until now, neuroscientists studying human brain function have used electroencephalography to show when brain activity occurs and functional neuro-imaging to indicate where it is occurring. But researchers have been unable to determine both the time and the location of brain activity concurrently because the two detection methods measure very different things – electrical activity and blood flow.
McDonald says that a new way of analyzing EEG led to his and Green’s results, which are summarized in the April issue of Public Library of Science Biology http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060081.
The pair used a signal-processing technique called beamforming, which was originally used for radar and sonar. The technique enabled the duo to decipher the timing and sequence of brain activity coinciding with an individual’s attention to different visual objects in his/her environment.
“The ability to identify human brain activities in both space and time is an important achievement in cognitive neuroscience,” says McDonald. He and Green have high-hopes for future brain-function research using this new technique.
“The ability to examine both the locations of neural activity and the dynamics of communication between brain regions with a low-cost, non-invasive methodology is relevant to researchers in all areas of cognitive research,” says Green. “EEG provides us with such a method. This technique could be used to investigate changes in memory that occur with normal aging compared to dementias or to examine changes in cognition that result from disorders such as depression and anxiety.”
Note: McDonald lives in Coquitlam; Green resides in New Westminster.
— 30 — (electronic photos available on request)