16th Annual Meeting of ISBN

Date: 20-24 June, 2008
Place: Sydney, Australia

SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL PROGRAM

Friday, June 20th 
Casual group dinner at DISH restaurant (Novotel) starting at 6:30

Saturday, June 21st 

9 AM Half day Symposium: New Directions in TMS Research
Organizer: Bradley R. Postle, University of Wisconsin-Madison

9.00-9:45 Beyond virtual neuropsychology™: Using TMS to study functional physiology
Brad Postle, University of Wisconsin-Madison

9:45-10:30 Combining transcranial magnetic stimulation with brain imaging: Old and new
Tomas Paus, University of Nottingham

10.30-10.50 COFFEE BREAK

10:50-11:35 Using TMS and fMRI to study causal functional interactions in the human visual system
Christian Ruff**, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London

11:35-12:20 Using TMS to probe mechanisms of spatial updating across saccadic eye movements
Jason B. Mattingley, (Queensland Brain Institute & School of Psychology, University of Queensland) Adam P. Morris & Christopher D. Chambers.

12:30-1:30 LUNCH: Dish Restaurant

Saturday Afternoon

2:15 PM: Open Paper Session

2:15 – 2:35 Effects of right parietal transcranial magnetic stimulation on object identification and orientation judgments
Irina M. Harris**1, Claire T. Benito1, Manuela Ruzzoli2, Carlo Miniussi3,2
1School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Australia; 2Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, IRCCS Centro San Giovanni di Dio – FBF, Brescia, Italy; 3Department of Biomedical Sciences and Biotechnologies, University of Brescia, Italy

2:35 – 2:55 Some Effects of Saccadic Eye Movements on the Selection of Stimuli by Neurons in Visual Cortex: Implications for Visual Attention
Tirin Moore, Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford CA

2:55 – 3:15 PM COFFEE

3.15 PM Presidential Speaker 

Presidential Speaker
Professor Michael Corballis
Department of Psychology, The University of Auckland, New Zealand

Telling time: How mental time travel shaped human language

Ferry to Opera House: 6.40 (from Pyrmont Bay)
Opera House Show time: 7.30

Sunday, June 22nd

Day for Playing:
Aquarium Darling Harbour (Group entry at 10:30 AM)

Excursion to Manly via ferry departing from Darling Harbour (stop near Aquarium)
– suggested departure time 2:10 PM (but people can make their own way to Manly as it suits them, and depending on the weather) with dinner at Manly at 7 PM.

Monday, June 23rd

9 AM: Half day symposium: Functional and effective connectivity: Application to patient populations
Organizer: Donna Rose Addis, University of Auckland

9:00 – 9:40 AM: Regional versus interregional analyses: Advantages of
connectivity approaches
Donna Rose Addis, Dept. of Psychology, The University of Auckland.

9:40-10:20 Memory-relevant connectivity in cases of abnormal mesial temporal structure
and function
Andrea Protzner** & Mary Pat McAndrews, Toronto Western Research Institute.

10:20-10:40 COFFEE BREAK

10:40-11:20 New insights into individual differences and disease from formal analyses
of connectivity in brain imaging data
James Rowe MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge.

11:20-12:00 T Prefrontal hypoactivation partly restored after non medicated sleep
therapy: functional imaging of connectivity patterns in insomnia
Ellemarije Altena** & Ysbrand D. Van der Werf
Dept. of Sleep & Cognition, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and VU University
Medical Center

12:00 -12:15 Discussion / Concluding remarks

LUNCH: 12:30-1:30 Dish Restaurant

3.15 PM: Works In Progress

3:15-3:35 Neurophysiology of self and other emotion regulation.
Tom F.D. Farrow and the EROS network.
SCANLab (Sheffield Cognition and Neuroimaging Laboratory), Academic Clinical Psychiatry, Section of Neuroscience, University of Sheffield, The Longley Centre, Northern General Hospital, Norwood Grange Drive, Sheffield S5 7JT, UK.

3:35-3:55 Perceiving facial expressions in childhood, adolescence and adulthood
Romina Palermo, Carmen Atkinson, Megan Willis, Peter De Lissa, Christopher Sewell, & Genevieve McArthur. Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science (MACCS), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

3:55-4:15 COFFEE

Open Paper Session 

4:00 -4:20 Anhedonia and emotional responsivity in schizophrenia: The role of amygdala and basal ganglia function.
Deanna M. Barch,**1 Erin Conner 1
1Washington University in St. Louis, Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry and Radiology

4:20-4:40 Linking music, language and reading: implications for developmental dyslexia
Nadine Gaab** Developmental Medicine Center, Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School.

4:40-5:00 Associations Between Infant Brain Structure and later language: The role of the left amygdala.
April A. Benasich, Center for Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

5.30 Wine Tasting in conference room

7:00 Dinner at local venue, to be announced

Tuesday, June 24th 

9:15 AM: Open Paper session

9:15 – 9:35 Severe scene learning impairment, but intact recognition memory, following combined cholinergic depletion of inferotemporal cortex and fornix transection
Mark G Baxter, Philip G F Browning, Paula L Croxson, David Gaffan
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, United Kingdom

9:35-9:55 Cholinergic depletion of prefrontal cortex impairs delayed response learning but not episodic memory, strategy implementation or decision making
Paula L Croxson**, Diana A Kyriazis and Mark G Baxter
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford

9:55-10:15 The motivation-cognition interface: Effects of incentive valence, type, and magnitude on brain activity during working memory task performance
Todd S. Braver & Hannah S. Locke, Washington University, Saint Louis

10:15-10:35 COFFEE BREAK

10:35-10:55 Topographical Memory in Patients with Temporal Lobe Stroke and Focal Lobar Atrophy
Ilana J. Hepner**1, Elizabeth O. Thompson2 and Laurie A. Miller3, 4
1Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, 2Department of Radiology, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, 3Neuropsychology Unit, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and 4Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

10:55-11:15 Premotor and striatal interactions in musicians and non-musicians during beat perception
Jessica Grahn**1 and James Rowe1,2,3
1 MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit; 2 Cambridge University Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Cambridge, UK
3 Behavioural and Clinical Neurosciences Institute, Cambridge, UK

11:15-11:35 The functional role of fronto-striatal interactions for cognition in healthy individuals and Parkinson’s disease.
Oury Monchi**1,2, Ph.D.
1Functional Neuroimaging Unit, Montreal Geriatric Institute, 2Departement of Radiology, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

11:35-11.55 Habituation as a mechanism for emotional changes in aging.
Closing Paper by ancient member: Janowsky, J.S., Roalf, D, Pruis, T.
Dept. Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland

12:00 Business Meeting

12:45 Lunch at Dish Restaurant

TUESDAY Afternoon: Taronga Zoo Trip or Bondi to Coogee Beach Walk
3:30 Afternoon tea available at the Novotel

A. SITE

There has been a change of venue for the Sydney meeting! On the downside, we have had to give up our more remote beach-side hotel in Manly because of major renovations going on there. On the plus side, the new venue (the Novotel Hotel) at Darling Harbour is closer to the heart of the action, with many entertainment options and restaurants. Other advantages: Darling Harbour is cheaper to get to from the airport, it is handier to public transport and there is now a greater range of accommodation options to choose from.

To whet your appetite, check out these Darling Harbour websites:

http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/AboutSydney/CityLocalities/DarlingHarbour.asp
http://www.sydney-australia.biz/darlingharbour/

B. PROGRAM SCHEDULE (SEE ABOVE)

The conference is scheduled to run from a get-together dinner at the Dish Restaurant at the Novotel Hotel on Friday, June 20th to late in the day on Tuesday June 24th. Members and prospective members are expected to attend all sessions. There will be two symposia (see ISBN website for details), a Presidential address by Prof Mike Corballis as well as open paper and works-in-progress sessions.

There are a variety of social activities planned, including a wine tasting on Monday afternoon and a full day for guided-tourism-with-a-personal-touch on Sunday, June 22nd.

C. ABSTRACTS

Abstracts should include the title, coauthors and affiliations. They are to be emailed to the program chair: Lynette Tippett l.tippett@auckland.ac.nz

ISBN Abstracts 2008 (Sydney)
In order of talks
** = Potential New member

Saturday 21st June

Symposium: New Directions in TMS Research
Organizer: Bradley R. Postle, University of Wisconsin-Madison

On the 10th anniversary of the ISBN symposium sponsored by Tomas Paus, at which he introduced transcranial magnetic stimulation as a research tool, this symposium will serve as an update that will showcase current, innovative approaches to human neuroscience with TMS and repetitive (r)TMS.

Beyond �virtual neuropsychology’: Using TMS to study functional physiology
Brad Postle, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Although repetitive (r)TMS can be used effectively as a tool to disrupt behavior, presumably by injecting “noise” into a targeted cortical region, it is increasingly being used other ways as well. This talk will briefly review some basic biophysics, then introduce the procedures – and some preliminary data – from experiments pairing TMS with fMRI and rTMS with EEG. These studies suggest ways to gain insight about, for example, the shape of the hemodynamic response function across different brain areas, the physiological bases of “functional connectivity,” and the functions of cortical oscillations in working memory task performance.

Combining transcranial magnetic stimulation with brain imaging: Old and new
Tomas Paus, University of Nottingham

Over the past 10 years, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) has become an indispensable tool in cognitive neuroscience. In most studies, TMS is combined with brain imaging to localize the cortical target or to assess local and distal response to brain stimulation. In my talk, I will describe various approaches used to achieve these two goals based on the past (Paus 1999, 2008) and current work in my laboratory.

Paus T. Imaging the brain before, during, and after transcranial magnetic stimulation. Neuropsychologia 37:219-224, 1999.
Paus T. Combining brain imaging with brain stimulation: Causality and connectivity In: Wassermann E, Epstein, C.M., Ziemann U, Walsh, V., Paus, T. and Lisanby, S.H. (Eds). The Oxford Handbook of Transcranial Stimulation. Oxford University Press 2008, pp. 539-548.

Using TMS and fMRI to study causal functional interactions in the human visual system
Christian Ruff**, Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London

Many models and theories of selective attention and consciousness are formulated in a causal sense, implying that higher-level �non-sensory’ brain areas in fronto-parietal cortex might directly influence neural processing in remote but interconnected sensory cortex. Such �top-down’ influences on visual cortex may prioritise processing of those aspects of the environment that are behaviourally relevant. However, functional neuroimaging methods in humans usually only provide correlational data which do not easily allow for tests of such mechanistic hypotheses.
In my talk, I will present recent studies in which we combined transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) with online functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to directly study causal top-down influences in the human visual system. TMS is a non-invasive stimulation technique which can be safely applied to circumscribed areas of the brains of healthy humans. When combined with on-line fMRI, as here, the brain activity changes resulting from TMS can be characterised for both the stimulated area and all interconnected brain regions. We employed this novel method to study how stimulating different regions in frontal and parietal cortex, thought to be parts of a network involved in the control of attention, may affect processing in visual cortex. We find that stimulation of the human frontal eye-field (FEF) or intraparietal sulcus (IPS), in the right and left hemisphere, can indeed lead to systematic and specific activity changes in retinotopic visual cortex. These causal influences of FEF- and IPS-TMS on visual cortex activity are qualitatively different in several respects, underlining the specificity of these influences to each stimulated region. Crucially, psychophysical experiments show that activity changes in visual cortex due to FEF-TMS are indeed associated with spatially corresponding influences on visual perception. The data I will present provide a clear proof-of-principle for causal, specific, and functionally relevant influences of frontal and parietal regions upon processing in human retinotopic visual cortex. These regions, and their feedback connections with visual cortex, may thus provide a neural substrate for the top-down control of visual processing in the human brain. TMS to probe mechanisms of spatial updating across saccadic eye movements

Using TMS to probe mechanisms of spatial updating across saccadic eye movements
Jason B. Mattingley, (Queensland Brain Institute & School of Psychology, University of Queensland) Adam P. Morris & Christopher D. Chambers.

Mechanisms of spatial updating are required to maintain accurate representations of visual space across eye movements. Such updating is subserved by spatially-tuned neurons within the intraparietal sulcus (IPS), which integrate the locations of visual stimuli on the retina with signals from the eye muscles. We combined non-invasive cortical stimulation with a double-step saccade task to examine the contribution of two intraparietal areas to trans-saccadic spatial updating. Stimulation over the posterior IPS (IPSp) broadened and shifted the distribution of second saccade endpoints, but only when the first saccade was directed contralaterally. By interleaving trials with and without cortical stimulation, we show that the shift in endpoints was caused by an enduring effect of stimulation on neural functioning. By varying the onset time of stimulation, we show that representations of space in IPSp are updated immediately after the first saccade. In contrast, stimulation of a more anterior IPS site had no such effects on second-saccades. Our findings suggest that stimulation of IPSp distorts an eye position or displacement signal that updates the representation of space at the completion of a saccade. Such sensory-motor integration is crucial for the ongoing control of action, and may contribute to visual stability across saccades.

Open Paper Session

Effects of right parietal transcranial magnetic stimulation on object identification and orientation judgments
Irina M. Harris**1, Claire T. Benito1, Manuela Ruzzoli2, Carlo Miniussi3,2
1School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Australia; 2Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, IRCCS Centro San Giovanni di Dio – FBF, Brescia, Italy; 3Department of Biomedical Sciences and Biotechnologies, University of Brescia, Italy

We investigated the role played by the right parietal lobe in object identification and the ability to interpret object orientation, using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to momentarily interfere with ongoing cortical activity. Short trains of TMS pulses (12Hz) were applied to a site overlying the right intraparietal sulcus/inferior parietal lobe while subjects performed either object identification tasks (i.e., picture-word verification and categorizing objects as natural or manufactured) or object orientation judgment tasks (i.e., picture-arrow verification and deciding whether an object was rotated clockwise or counter-clockwise). Across different tasks, right parietal TMS impaired orientation judgments, but facilitated object identification, compared to TMS applied to a brain vertex control site. These complementary findings demonstrate that the right parietal lobe – a region belonging to the dorsal visual stream – is critical for processing the spatial attributes of objects, but not their identity. The observed improvement in object recognition, however, suggests an indirect role for the right parietal lobe in object recognition. We propose that this involves the creation of a spatial reference frame for the object, which allows interaction with the object and the individuation of specific viewing instances.

Some Effects of Saccadic Eye Movements on the Selection of Stimuli by Neurons in Visual Cortex: Implications for Visual Attention
Tirin Moore, Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford CA

It is known that spatial attention is deployed to locations targeted by saccadic eye movements, and recent neurophysiological work has provided evidence of a role of saccade-related mechanisms in spatially-based, attentive filtering in visual cortex. Neurons in extrastriate cortex, such as area V4, are enhanced when visual stimuli in their receptive fields are the focus of covert attention as well as when those stimuli are used as saccade targets, thus demonstrating that saccade preparation is sufficient to drive stimulus selection by neurons in visual cortex. I will discuss some recent experiments that further explore the influence of saccade preparation on visual responses of V4 neurons. Results from these experiments suggest how different forms of visual attention, including bottom-up and feature-based attention, might emerge from the interaction of oculomotor and visual representations.

Monday 23rd June

Symposium: Functional and effective connectivity: Application to patient populations
Organizer: Donna Rose Addis, University of Auckland

The past decade has seen great advances in the use of functional neuroimaging to map the neural bases of cognition. However, much of the focus has been on task or group differences in specific regions. However, neural regions do not act in isolation; they function in a neural context, specifically, complex neural networks. Many groups are now examining patterns of interregional interactions to identify the regions comprising networks (functional connectivity) and the patterns of influence between regions within networks (effective connectivity). These connectivity techniques have distinct advantages over univariate analyses, and have proved particularly useful in approaching certain research questions, for instance, how networks change in patient populations. The objective of this symposium is to highlight the analytic advantages afforded by some of the various connectivity techniques available and the valuable insights provided by these analytic techniques in patient populations.

Regional versus interregional analyses: Advantages of connectivity approaches
Donna Rose Addis, Dept. of Psychology, The University of Auckland.

A variety of methods have been advanced for assessing functional (partial least squares, independent components analysis, correlational approaches) and effective (structural equation modeling, dynamic causal modeling) connectivity. A brief overview of some of these methods will
be provided, and a comparison of SPM univariate analyses and partial least squares (PLS) functional connectivity analyses will be presented using data from fMRI studies on (1) autobiographical memory and (2) imagining past and future events.

Memory-relevant connectivity in cases of abnormal mesial temporal structure and function
Andrea Protzner** & Mary Pat McAndrews, Toronto Western Research Institute.

We will present data on autobiographical memory retrieval in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, both prior and subsequent to surgical excision of the hippocampus, on scene encoding and retrieval in a single patient during and after an episode of transient global amnesia, and on item encoding and recognition in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment. Different strategies and challenges in modeling networks will be emphasized.

New insights into individual differences and disease from formal analyses of connectivity in brain imaging data
James Rowe MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, University of Cambridge.

The world of neuroimaging is evolving rapidly, across PET, MRI, TMS and MEG technologies. It is soften integrated with other specialties like neurogenetics, psychopharmacology, neuropsychology and neurological disciplines related to development and degeneration. Different methods of network analysis of human neuroimaging data are increasingly available – PPI, SEM, DCM, PLS, ICA etc – and I will illustrate how they can be applied to understand the effects of focal trauma and diffuse neurodegeneration in a way that could not have been done with traditional analyses.

Prefrontal hypoactivation partly restored after non medicated sleep therapy: functional imaging of connectivity patterns in insomnia
Ellemarije Altena** & Ysbrand D. Van der Werf
Dept. of Sleep & Cognition, Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience and VU University Medical Center.

Experimental sleep deprivation results in prefrontal malfunctioning the following day. No such effects are conclusively found in insomnia, despite the characteristic chronic sleep deprivation. Here, we investigated whether task-related brain activity patterns differ between insomniacs and healthy controls during verbal fluency and visual memory encoding tasks. In addition, we assessed the effects of non medicated sleep therapy on brain activity in the insomnia patients. We show that although performance levels are preserved until high levels of task complexity, prefrontal hypoactivation is found in insomnia patients regardless of difficulty level relative to controls. These effects partly reverse after sleep therapy. Functional connectivity of the networks supporting these cognitive tasks was assessed using Independent Component Analysis (ICA), revealing networks of synchronously active areas. We selected components from the ICA showing prefrontal and medial temporal networks active during the tasks; within these components, patients showed consistently decreased activity in the prefrontal areas but relative increased activity in the medial temporal cortex. To our knowledge, this is the first connectivity study performed in insomnia.

Works In Progress

Neurophysiology of self and other emotion regulation.
Tom F.D. Farrow and the EROS network.
SCANLab (Sheffield Cognition and Neuroimaging Laboratory), Academic Clinical Psychiatry, Section of Neuroscience, University of Sheffield, The Longley Centre, Northern General Hospital, Norwood Grange Drive, Sheffield S5 7JT, UK.

Introduction: The principal ways in which people regulate their own emotions using cognitive and behavioural strategies, such as engagement and avoidance, are now quite well understood, but an understanding of the underlying neurophysiology is lacking. This project will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and physiological measures of autonomic functioning (cardiac ECG, respiratory monitoring, and skin conductance response SCR) to investigate the interaction between the neural and autonomic components of emotion regulation.
Methods: 60 healthy subjects will be split into three groups, each receiving instruction in a specific strategy for regulating their own and other’s emotions (�surface acting’, �deep acting’ or �implementation intentions’). All subjects will subsequently undergo fMRI scanning at 3T whilst. SCR, cardiac and respiratory data are concurrently collected. During the �self-regulation’ task, subjects will view an actor via a live video feed, with whom they will either actively engage, or remain indifferent to, emotionally. During the �other-regulation’ task, subjects will attempt to influence the actor’s emotional state, pseudo-randomly receiving either positive or negative feedback.
Aims and Objectives: Hypotheses are formulated within the concepts of cognitive inhibition, social cognition, empathic connection, social exclusion and reappraisal vs. suppression.
Conclusions: This recently funded ESRC multi-centre study will run from late 2008 to 2012. The opportunity to present ideas to the ISBN audience and receive feedback will be extremely valuable in maximising outcomes.

Perceiving facial expressions in childhood, adolescence and adulthood
Romina Palermo, Carmen Atkinson, Megan Willis, Peter De Lissa, Christopher Sewell, & Genevieve McArthur. Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science (MACCS), Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

The brain regions involved in emotion processing develop dramatically between childhood and adulthood, especially during adolescence. These changes are reflected behaviourally, with the ability to label or match facial expressions improving over time. Facial expressions can be subject to explicit evaluation, but they can also be processed implicitly. Implicit and explicit facial expression processing may be differentially affected by development. The aim of this study was to examine implicit and explicit processing of facial expressions in children (6-7 years), adolescents (12-13 & 14-15 years) and adults (20-44 years). In addition to behavioural data, event-related potentials were collected to index emotional processing. Differences in expression processing were evident at the face-sensitive N170 component measured over occipito-temporal regions. For adults, the N170 response was enhanced for negative compared to positive expressions, for both implicit and explicit tasks. The N170 amplitude for adolescents was reduced compared to that observed for the adults and some differentiation of emotion occurred. Although, N170 amplitudes for the children were large, they did not differentiate between the expressions. The results suggest that there is a critical transition period between childhood and adolescence, which affects both implicit and explicit facial expression coding.

Open Paper Session

Anhedonia and emotional responsivity in schizophrenia: The role of amygdala and basal ganglia function.
Deanna M. Barch,**1 Erin Conner 1
1Washington University in St. Louis, Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry and Radiology

One of the classic symptoms of schizophrenia is a putative deficit in the ability to experience pleasure, a symptom referred to as anhedonia. Although a number of theories of risk for schizophrenia emphasize anhedonia as a contributing factor, the empirical literature on hedonic function in schizophrenia is quite mixed. Numerous behavioral studies in schizophrenia suggest intact self-reported hedonic responses to affect eliciting stimuli in this disorder (consummatory pleasure or “liking”), despite impaired reports of anticipated pleasure (“wanting) when patients are assessed via clinical interviews or questionnaires. This dissociation between liking and wanting in schizophrenia may reflect a number of different mechanisms, including deficits in dopaminergic systems that mediate reward prediction, deficits in active memory systems (e.g., dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) that support maintenance of goals and anticipated pleasurable states, and dissociations among different channels of m pleasure (self-report, functional brain activation, and peripheral physiology). The goal of the current study was to examine, in individuals with schizophrenia and healthy controls, the relationships between: 1) clinical and questionnaire based assessment of anhedonia (anticipatory pleasure); 2) self-reports of valence and arousal to positive and negatively valenced stimuli (words, faces, pictures); 3) amygdala and basal ganglia responses to these stimuli; and 4) the ability of amygdala and basal ganglia responses during encoding to predict subsequent memory to affectively valenced stimuli. The results indicate that individuals with schizophrenia show: 1) significant, but small, reductions in self-reports of valence to negative and positive stimuli; 2) a dissociation between self-reports of affective experience and amygdala and basal ganglia responses during fMRI; and 3) a disrupted relationship between amaygdala activity at encoding and subsequent memory for both positive and negative stimuli. These results suggested that there might be dissociation between self-reports of affective responses and functional brain changes in response to affective stimuli, as well as a disruption in the ability of current responses to predict future behavior.

Linking music, language and reading: implications for developmental dyslexia
Nadine Gaab** Developmental Medicine Center, Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School.

Developmental dyslexia, which may affect 5-17% of children, is a specific learning disability characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition, poor spelling, and poor decoding performance. Learning to read an alphabetic language requires mastering grapheme-phoneme correspondences (i.e., mapping the sounds of auditory language to the letters of written language). Dyslexic individuals appear to have a weak representation of the sounds of language, and this in turn makes it difficult to relate those sounds to written language. Surprisingly, only a few studies have assessed the neural correlates of basic and higher order verbal and nonverbal auditory processing in children and adults with a diagnosis of developmental dyslexia using functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Furthermore, various studies have demonstrated a relationship between musical training and/or musical aptitude and improved language and reading skills in children and adults. This effect has been found in behavioral studies for a variety of language and language related tasks such as phonological segmentation, verbal memory, reading ability or speech prosody perception. However, the underlying mechanism of why and how musical training may lead to improved language and literacy skills remains unclear.
I will present new insights (brain imaging and behavioral studies) in the role of auditory processing in reading development (in the pre-reading and reading brain) as well as its role in language and reading disorders. Furthermore, I will discuss the potential role musical and auditory training may play in improving language and reading skills in children.

Associations between infant brain structure and later language: The role of the left amygdala.
April A. Benasich, Center for Molecular & Behavioral Neuroscience, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

Little is known about how the healthy infant brain develops, what role subcortical structures, such as the amygdalae, might play and how volumetric changes across development might be associated with later language and cognitive abilities. Although the amygdala has been implicated in processing of nonverbal negative emotional stimuli (i.e. fear) recent studies in adults have reported left amygdala activation when emotionally positive verbal stimuli are presented (Hamman & Mao, 2002). In autistic individuals, smaller amygdalae were correlated with slower discrimination of emotional expressions (Nacewics, et al., 2006). Larger right amygdalae at 3-4 years was associated with poorer social and communication abilities at 6 years in children with autism, while larger left amygdalae predicted better language outcomes (Munson, et al., 2006). These studies support the idea that the left amygdala is not only involved in the processing of negative and positive emotional stimuli, but might also play an important role in processing verbal stimuli.
In this study we examined 23 normally developing children at 6 and/or 12 months of age. MR scans were acquired while children were in natural, non-sedated sleep wearing a noise attenuation helmet. A T1 weighted 3D SPGR sequence was collected on a GE 1.5 Tesla Echospeed MR scanner using a standard head coil. The images were normalized and processed by Cardviews (a manual brain segmentation tool) and labeled to extract volumetric data. At 6 months, we found that the left amygdala was significantly larger than the right; at 12 months, no laterality difference was found. Associations between volume of the left amygdala at 6 months and language measures at 24 months were examined. We found that children with larger left amygdalae at 6 months had higher percentile scores on expressive language measures at 24 months as indexed by the CDI Words and Sentences: use of irregular nouns and verbs (r = .61, p = .037) and vocabulary production (r = .60, p = .039). Children with larger left amygdalae at 6 months also achieved higher standard scores on the PLS-3 expressive language (r = .54, p = .047) and on the Mullen expressive language (r = .55, p = .041) scales at 24 months. The implications of these findings will be discussed.

Tuesday, June 24th

Open Paper Session

Severe scene learning impairment, but intact recognition memory, following combined cholinergic depletion of inferotemporal cortex and fornix transection
Mark G Baxter, Philip G F Browning, Paula L Croxson, David Gaffan
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, United Kingdom

The involvement of corticopetal cholinergic projections in cognition remains difficult to define. Some investigators have suggested that normal cortical function requires an intact cholinergic input, whereas others emphasize a selective role of acetylcholine in attentional function or plasticity. Because of the anatomical and functional homology of human and macaque cortical structures, studies of the effects of selective ablation of cholinergic projections to cortical regions in the macaque would clarify the functions for which these projections are essential.
We have tested effects of selective cholinergic lesions of inferotemporal cortex in monkeys preoperatively trained on either an object-in-place scene learning task, a macaque model of episodic memory, or in delayed nonmatching-to-sample (DNMS) performance, a classic test of visual recognition memory. In the scene learning task, monkeys rapidly learned many (typically 20) new object-in-place scene problems within a session. Because learning occurs rapidly — mostly in a single trial — and depends on the presentation of discrimination problems in unique background scenes, this task models key features of human episodic memory. In each trial of the DNMS task, monkeys viewed 8 sample objects and were then given choice tests (in reverse order from sample presentation) between each sample object and a trial-unique novel object, receiving reward for choosing the novel object, and completed 10-15 such trials at each list position in each test session. 6 macaque monkeys were trained for each experiment, and half in each group received injections of the cholinergic immunotoxin ME20.4-saporin bilaterally into inferotemporal cortex, while the other half received sterile saline injections as a control.
Cholinergic depletion of inferotemporal cortex (including area TE, perirhinal cortex, and anterior entorhinal cortex) was without effect on either task. All monkeys then received fornix transection, because previous studies have shown that multiple disconnections of temporal cortex can have synergistic effects on learning. The effect of fornix transection on scene learning was greatly potentiated by prior depletion of acetylcholine from inferior temporal cortex: fornix transection had a mild effect on new scene learning in monkeys that had received saline injections, but severely impaired scene learning in monkeys that had received cholinergic lesions of inferotemporal cortex. Fornix transection did not significantly impair DNMS whether monkeys had prior cholinergic depletion of inferotemporal cortex or not.
These findings confirm a synergistic interaction between connections carried by the fornix and cholinergic input to the inferotemporal cortex in episodic memory. They also support the notion that the mnemonic functions tapped by object-in-place scene learning and DNMS have dissociable neural substrates. Finally, cholinergic depletion of inferotemporal cortex, on its own, appears to be insufficient to impair a range of memory functions dependent on an intact inferotemporal cortex.

Research supported by the Wellcome Trust (MGB) and Medical Research Council (DG)

Cholinergic depletion of prefrontal cortex impairs delayed response learning but not episodic memory, strategy implementation or decision making
Paula L Croxson**, Diana A Kyriazis and Mark G Baxter
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford

Cholinergic modulation of the prefrontal cortex has been proposed to have a general role in supporting its functions, but it may also have a more specific function. For example, it has been proposed to have a role in cortical plasticity or attention. To investigate these possibilities, we used tasks which are dependent on restricted regions of prefrontal cortex to assess whether cholinergic innervation of prefrontal cortex is essential for some or all of these tasks.
We used the cholinergic immunotoxin ME20.4 saporin to make local depletions of lateral and orbital prefrontal cortex (n=3) or ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (n=2) in monkeys which had been preoperatively trained on object-in-place scene learning and strategy implementation, which require intact orbital and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. All monkeys with cholinergic depletions were unimpaired on scene learning and strategy implementation compared to controls (n=4). These monkeys were also unimpaired on a test of value-based decision making (reinforcer devaluation) which requires intact orbital prefrontal cortex. In contrast to these negative findings, monkeys with cholinergic depletions of lateral and orbital prefrontal cortex were severely impaired in acquiring a delayed response task compared to controls.
These findings are not consistent with the view that cholinergic input plays a general role in supporting the functions of its cortical targets because monkeys with prefrontal cholinergic depletions were entirely unimpaired on a number of prefrontal dependent tasks. Episodic memory, strategy formation and decision making can proceed normally even with severely disrupted cholinergic input, so loss of cholinergic input on its own is unlikely to explain impaired prefrontal function in conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease. Monkeys with prefrontal cholinergic lesions were, however, impaired at delayed response learning. Cholinergic neuromodulation may be specifically required for adapting the function of a cortical area to new cognitive demands.

Supported by the Wellcome Trust (MGB)

The motivation-cognition interface: Effects of incentive valence, type, and magnitude on brain activity during working memory task performance
Todd S. Braver & Hannah S. Locke, Washington University, Saint Louis

Introduction: It is well-known that behavioral performance on cognitive tasks can improve under the influence of motivational incentives, but the neural mechanisms underlying motivational effects are poorly understood. A growing human and animal literature has begun to elucidate the neural circuitry of reward processing, and to a lesser extent, that of punishment, but it is not clear whether this same circuitry is engaged to influence the brain systems engaged during cognitive task processing as a function of motivational state. The current study examined these issues by having human participants (N=31) perform a difficult working memory (WM) task under conditions in which different motivational factors were manipulated.
Methods: Participants were scanned (3T Siemens Allegra) while performing an item-recognition WM task (5-word memory set) under various incentive conditions. The first was a naive, no-incentive baseline block. Median correct trial RT in this block defined the criteria for incentives in subsequent blocks. Across blocks, the incentives varied by valence (reward or punishment for good vs. poor performance) and type (monetary bonuses / penalties, or apple juice / salt water) in a 2×2 design. Within blocks, three types of trials were randomly intermixed – high, low or no incentive – with this information cued immediately prior to the trial beginning. The task was performed in a mixed blocked / event-related design in order to extract incentive effects on both sustained and transient neural activity.
Results: The effects of incentives on behavioral performance were striking. Reaction times were ~200 msec faster on incentive blocks, with no change in accuracy. These effects were observed even on no-incentive trials, suggesting a general incentive context effect. An additional effect (~50 msec) was observed on high incentive compared to no-incentive trials. There was no effect of incentive valence or type on performance, indicating that there were equivalent influences of rewards and punishments and liquids and money on behavior.
Motivational incentives were associated with both sustained and transient increases in brain activation, but the pattern and location of this activity was strongly modulated by the incentive type and valence. In the monetary conditions, incentive-related increases were primarily sustained and found in a right lateralized network of regions involved in cognitive control, including dorsolateral PFC and inferior parietal cortex. Valence effects in the monetary condition were minimal or absent. In contrast, during the liquid conditions, incentive-related increases in cognitive control regions were primarily transient in nature and modulated by incentive magnitude. Sustained effects were observed primarily in regions thought to be key components of neural reward/punishment circuitry, such as the bilateral dorsal caudate, which showed a generalized increase in sustained activity in all incentive blocks. Other components of this network, showed increases only in specific conditions, such as the right insula and bilateral amygdala during liquid punishment blocks, and the nucleus accumbens during liquid reward blocks. Finally, in a number of regions, activation increases were correlated with behavioral performance changes.
Conclusions: Taken together, the results indicate that incentive effects on behavioral performance occur both through dissociable changes in the neural circuitry of reward/punishment and in cognitive control networks, thus suggesting a potential interface for motivation-cognition interactions.

Topographical Memory in Patients with Temporal Lobe Stroke and Focal Lobar Atrophy
Ilana J. Hepner**1, Elizabeth O. Thompson2 and Laurie A. Miller3, 4
1Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Macquarie University, 2Department of Radiology, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, 3Neuropsychology Unit, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and 4Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

To date, most research on retrograde amnesia has focussed on aspects of autobiographical and/or semantic memory, leaving the effects of focal brain damage on topographical memory under explored. In a previous study, we investigated a range of topographical memory skills in a subject with recently sustained bilateral infarctions confined to the MTL and mesial occipital lobe (retrosplenial cortex). The findings supported proposals that the parahippocampal/lingual gyrus is involved in landmark naming and that the retrosplenial cortex is required for heading orientation. However, it remains unclear as to whether unilateral brain damage is sufficient to disrupt these aspects of topographical memory, with somewhat discrepant findings reported in the patient and neuroimaging literature. As such, the current study set out to investigate site and side of lesion effects pertaining to landmark naming and heading orientation in five patients who had had a unilateral cerebrovascular accident involving the temporal lobe and in four patients with focal lobar atrophy (three temporal and one parietal). Consistent with our previous study, the findings indicated that the locus of the lesion did help to predict the pattern of performance. Unilateral temporal lobe lesions resulted in impairments in recollection of landmark names, whereas bilateral retrosplenial damage was required to disrupt heading orientation. No material specific side of lesion effects were apparent for either of these aspects of topographical memory. Further study of the neural underpinnings of retrograde topographical ability is warranted, particularly with reference to characterising any possible relationships with other aspects of retrograde memory.

Premotor and striatal interactions in musicians and non-musicians during beat perception
Jessica Grahn**1 and James Rowe1,2,3
1 MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit,
2 Cambridge University Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Cambridge, UK
3 Behavioural and Clinical Neurosciences Institute, Cambridge, UK

Perception of musical rhythms is culturally universal, yet unique to humans. Despite this special status, relatively little is known about the neurobiology of rhythm and beat perception. Here we used fMRI to study rhythm perception in musicians and non-musicians. In experiment 1, the beat in the rhythms was either emphasized by volume changes or needed to be internally generated in alignment with subtler accents arising from duration changes. In both conditions, comparing beat to non-beat control rhythms revealed putamen activity. Beat rhythms were also associated with greater effective connectivity between the putamen and the supplementary motor area (SMA), the premotor cortex (PMC) and auditory cortex. In contrast, the type of accent within the beat conditions modulated the coupling between premotor and auditory cortex, with greater modulation for musicians than non-musicians.
We propose that a cortico-subcortical network including the putamen, SMA, and PMC is engaged for the analysis of temporal sequences and prediction or generation of putative beats, especially under conditions that require internal generation of the beat. The importance of this system for auditory-motor interaction and development of precisely timed movement is suggested here by its facilitation in musicians.

The functional role of fronto-striatal interactions for cognition in healthy individuals and Parkinson’s disease.
Oury Monchi**1,2, Ph.D.
1Functional Neuroimaging Unit, Montreal Geriatric Institute, 2Departement of Radiology, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Recent functional neuroimaging studies have allowed to explore more precisely the role of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the striatum as well as their associated dopamine pathways in cognition. However, the precise functions of the various subdivisions of the prefrontal cortex and the striatum remain unknown. Furthermore, the anatomical and physiological origins of the cognitive deficits observed in Parkinson’s disease (PD) are even less understood. In this talk we will present fMRI studies that aim to separate to separate out the role of the striatum from that of various regions of the prefrontal cortex in executive processes. A new theory regarding the role of the striatum as compared to that of the prefrontal cortex will be exposed. The same fMRI protocols were also used in early PD patients and matched controls. The results of these studies resulted in a new hypothesis regarding the neural origins of cognitive deficits observed in PD that will be exposed here. We will also present a PET study that shows a link between striatal dopamine release and striatum activation in healthy subjects in the context of executive processes. We will finish by discussing ongoing work aiming to study the evolution of cognitive deficits as compared to motor symptoms in PD as the disease progresses.

Habituation as a mechanism for emotional changes in aging.
Janowsky, J.S., Roalf, D, Pruis, T.
Dept. Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland.

Older adults have less attention and memory for negative faces, pictures, and events than younger adults. We examined the brain basis for this shift in emotion in 22 older men and women (13F/9M; 65 –85 yrs) as compared to 14 younger adults (7F/7M; 21-35 yrs) and whether hormone therapy (HT) in women (HT: n = 11; NONE: n =12) modified emotional responses. We examined three possible hypotheses: a). That less amygdala activity in the elderly, particularly for negative stimuli, b). Inhibition of amygdala by the prefrontal cortex or c). Differential habituation or maintenance of activity in amygdala or prefrontal cortex underlies the loss of negative affect in older people. Participants viewed blocks of negative, neutral and positive emotional scenes (IAPS) during 3T fMRI acquisition. Change in signal from the first to the second half of the picture blocks served as the index of habituation. Older participants had less amygdala and more prefrontal (dorsolateral but not orbital) activity than younger adults. Younger adults had more amygdala activity for negative than neutral or positive scenes, but older adults did not have valence-related differential activity. In contrast, older adults had higher activity but greater habituation to negative scenes, and relative persistence of activity to positive scenes in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Prefrontal activity did not correlate with amygdala activity and no valence or age-related effects were found for orbital prefrontal cortex. HT did not affect emotion-induced brain activity with the exception that NONE had persistent activity in amygdala to positive scenes Thus, loss of amygdala activity and amplified activity in prefrontal cortex to negative scenes, that then habituates, may be one mechanism that underlies the shift in emotion in aging. Acknowledgements NIH AG12611; AG18843; T32 AG03477; DOD NDSEG

D. ACCOMMODATION

Here are the three accommodation venues that you have to choose from. These different buildings are next door to each other: The prices given below are in Australian dollars.

Check out the websites for pictures, etc. Any questions or special requests that you have should be directed to Trish Andrews (PHONE: 9288-7174)

Email: h1181-re04@accor.com

The Novotel Sydney on Darling Harbour itself, where the conference room is situated. Room rates here are $210 per night. All of these rooms are Harbour View and the rates include breakfast for one person. Additional adults sharing the room pay only for breakfasts. This last arrangement can be sorted with the hotel upon arrival.

http://www.novoteldarlingharbour.com.au/

The Hotel Ibis Darling Harbour. Room rates here are $170 per night. All of these rooms are Harbour View and the rates include breakfast for one person. Additional adults sharing the room pay only for breakfasts. This last arrangement can be sorted with the hotel upon arrival.

http://www.hotelibisdarlingharbour.com.au/

The Grand Mercure Apartments One Darling Harbour. (These each have two bedrooms [can sleep up to 4 people], two bathrooms, a lounge and kitchen). The rate for each apartment is $319 per night. This is a great option for sharing!! No breakfast is included in this accommodation rate.

http://www.grandmercuredarlingharbour.com.au/

To book, please complete the attached form and email it to me lauriem@icn.usyd.edu.au). PLEASE DO NOT BOOK DIRECTLY WITH THE HOTEL, AS WE HAVE A COMMITMENT TO MEET IN TERMS OF NUMBER OF ROOMS AND I AM IN CHARGE OF THE COUNT. Also, please choose to stay at one of these three places, because if we fail to meet the reserved number of rooms, ISBN will be charged.

DEADLINE FOR RETURNING THE ACCOMMODATION BOOKING FORM IS APRIL 15TH (BUT THE SOONER THE BETTER). ONE NIGHT�S ACCOMODATION FEE WILL BE DEDUCTED FROM YOUR CREDIT CARD TO HOLD THE ROOM.

E. REGISTRATION

Conference registration is $250 US. This needs to be paid to Sandy via Paypal by April 15th or by check (please post by April 1st). This covers the cost of morning/afternoon teas as well as buffet lunches on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. It also covers some equipment rental. Buffet lunch for accompanying adults costs 34 Australian dollars. The latter can be charged after you arrive.

Instructions for payment:

Currently, our Paypal link can only accept payments of $25 and $50 US. If you choose to pay by this method, you will need to make 5 separate payments to total $250.00 for the registration. If, however, you wish not to do this, Sandy will also accept payment in the form of a check in US dollars. Directions for both methods are detailed below.

1. Paypal. Go to the ISBN website: http://psych.wisc.edu/ISBN/home.html and click on Pay membership dues here. Click on the top Paypal button ($50) five separate times.

2. Send a check payable to Sandy Neargarder to: Sandy Neargarder, 462 Broad Street, Bridgewater, MA 02324.

For those of you writing checks, you may also want to include your 2008 dues to make life easier. The dues are $50.00 for faculty and $25.00 for postdocs. For those paying by Paypal, Sandy will be sending a message around sometime in April about paying your 2008 dues.

Sandy will bring receipts to the conference or she can mail one to you if you prefer.

DEADLINE FOR PAYING REGISTRATION IS APRIL 15th. IF SENDING A CHECK, POST THIS NO LATER THAN APRIL 1st.

F. OPERA HOUSE TICKETS

For those of you who ordered tickets from me to see My Fair Lady on June 21st, please add 100 dollars (US) per ticket to your registration fee and pay this to ISBN via Paypal or check. I will settle the difference with you upon arrival. (Paypal allows payments in amounts of only 25 or 50 dollars US.) Anyone who did not order tickets originally, but would now like one should email Laurie at lauriem@icn.usyd.edu.au.