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This list is intended to include all talks and seminars taking place in the Department of Psychology and certain related institutions.
URL: http://talks.cam.ac.uk/show/index/39836
Updated: 21 min 36 sec ago

Fri 23 May 16:30: Brain Mechanisms of Attention: Sensory Selection to Free Will The host for this talk is Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

Mon, 28/04/2025 - 13:55
Brain Mechanisms of Attention: Sensory Selection to Free Will

The Host for this talk is Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

ABSTRACT : Selective attention relies on intricate neural mechanisms that shape how the brain processes information. In this lecture, I will present findings from our research on the neural underpinnings of voluntary spatial, feature, and object attention, utilizing EEG , fMRI and eye-tracking methods. I will highlight key findings related to attentional control within the frontal and parietal cortices, as well as how these mechanisms influence sensory and perceptual processing. In addition, I will present studies investigating voluntary attention in free-choice conditions, where individuals exert their free will to direct attention without external guidance. This presentation is framed by our Specificity of Control (SpoC) model of attention, which emphasizes the microstructural organization

The host for this talk is Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

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Fri 30 May 16:30: Animal Consciousness: Evidence Models and Clues

Mon, 28/04/2025 - 10:11
Animal Consciousness: Evidence Models and Clues

The Hosts for this talk are Nicky Clayton and Max Knowles

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Fri 23 May 16:30: To be confirmed The host for this talk is Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

Mon, 28/04/2025 - 10:08
To be confirmed

The Host for this talk is Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

The host for this talk is Sarah-Jayne Blakemore

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Fri 02 May 16:30: How the Built Environment Affects Spatial Behavior, Brain Activity and Aesthetics

Mon, 28/04/2025 - 10:08
How the Built Environment Affects Spatial Behavior, Brain Activity and Aesthetics

The host for this talk is Nicky Clayton

Abstract: The talk will present research from our research team where we have explored how the structure of the environment affects wayfinding behaviour. It will cover our research with Sea Hero Quest in which we found growing up in griddy cities has a negative impact on navigation behaviour, as well as well as research with London taxi drivers how the environment affects how they plan. In the second part I will cover our recent research in neuroarchitecture exploring brain responses (fMRI) during watching movies of pleasant or unpleasant built environment and crowd dynamics in a study of 100 people navigating and exploring a fabricated large-scale art gallery (The 100 Minds in Motion Project).

Bio: Hugo Spiers is Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, and a Vice Dean for Enterprise, at University College London (UCL). He has over 25 years of research experience in neuroscience and psychology studying how our brain recalls the past, navigates the present and imagines the future. He has published over 100 academic articles and received numerous awards including the Charles Darwin Award from the British Science Association and a James McDonnell Foundation Scholar Award. He is co-director of the International Centre for NeuroArchitecture and NeuroDesign, a Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation, a Lighthouse Fellow of the Centre for Conscious Design and the Vice Chair of the Academy of Neuroscience for Architecture in the UK. His research project Sea Hero Quest has tested over 4 million people in 195 nations on their navigation ability, providing a powerful benchmark for assessment in Alzheimer’s disease and global insight into cognition.

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Thu 19 Jun 14:00: Insights into mental health disorders from genetics and immunology

Thu, 24/04/2025 - 14:42
Insights into mental health disorders from genetics and immunology

Abstract not available

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Thu 12 Jun 14:00: Rethinking the sensory-deprived brain: How sensory deprivation improved our vision on brain function

Thu, 24/04/2025 - 14:41
Rethinking the sensory-deprived brain: How sensory deprivation improved our vision on brain function

Abstract not available

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Thu 12 Jun 14:00: Rethinking the sensory-deprived brain: How sensory deprivation improved our vision on brain function

Thu, 24/04/2025 - 14:41
Rethinking the sensory-deprived brain: How sensory deprivation improved our vision on brain function

Abstract not available

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Thu 22 May 14:00: A computational perspective on causal interventions in psychiatry

Thu, 24/04/2025 - 14:40
A computational perspective on causal interventions in psychiatry

Abstract not available

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Thu 15 May 14:00: Dissecting the neural control of skilled movements

Thu, 24/04/2025 - 14:39
Dissecting the neural control of skilled movements

Abstract not available

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Thu 05 Jun 14:00: Talk title tbc

Thu, 24/04/2025 - 14:39
Talk title tbc

Abstract not available

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Thu 08 May 14:00: The human sense of smell: From hunter-gatherers to wine experts

Thu, 24/04/2025 - 14:36
The human sense of smell: From hunter-gatherers to wine experts

Abstract not available

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Thu 01 May 14:00: From survival in the wild to music enjoyment - how the human brain discovers structure in sound sequences

Thu, 24/04/2025 - 14:36
From survival in the wild to music enjoyment - how the human brain discovers structure in sound sequences

Abstract not available

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Tue 06 May 16:00: The challenges and rewards of pursuing real-word Developmental Science In-person: Ground Floor Seminar Room, Old Cavendish Building, Free School Lane / Teams Meeting ID: 336 446 191 696, Passcode: QHt4pm

Wed, 23/04/2025 - 15:18
The challenges and rewards of pursuing real-word Developmental Science

Historically, the understanding of the brain-based mechanisms of learning in young children has relied on well-controlled lab-based experiments. This was for good scientific reasons. First, there was a drive to isolate individual causes of behaviours and therefore to carefully control the environments in which children behaved during a study.

Moreover, the equipment required to assess the neural correlates of behaviours were cumbersome and difficult to move so children’s mobility had to be restricted. Recent developments in wearable and wifi-enhanced technologies have now allowed us to literally “untether” children and explore their brain and behaviour as they move around and interact naturally. This has opened new avenues for research, but has equally revealed important new challenges to the way that we approach developmental sciences.

In this seminar, I will draw on my lab’s recent work on children’s sensory cue integration, neural synchrony during children’s collaborative problem solving and the trials and tribulations of translating basic cognitive neuroscience research into real-world effective classroom interventions to highlight some of the challenges that contemporary developmental sciences faces.

Speaker bio:

Professor Denis Mareschal is Director of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, at Birkbeck University of London, and a founding member of the Centre for Educational Neuroscience. After completing a BA in Natural Science at Cambridge, he moved on to studying learning—initially in the form of an MA in Psychology and Artificial Intelligence at McGill in Montreal, Canada and then through completing a DPhil in Psychology at Oxford.

Professor Mareschal’s research has focussed on identifying the mechanisms of learning and development in infancy and childhood through the combined use of behavioural studies, computational modelling and neuroimaging. He has received a number of awards for his work, including the Marr Prize from the Cognitive Science Society, the Young Investigator Award from the International Congress on Infant Studies and the Margaret Donaldson Prize from the BPS Developmental Section.

Over the last 10 years he has led the UnLocke project (Unlocke.org) developing a neuroscience-based primary school maths and science education intervention. He is committed to taking neuroscience out of the lab and into the real-world, in terms of primary research and in terms of translational impact.

In-person: Ground Floor Seminar Room, Old Cavendish Building, Free School Lane / Teams Meeting ID: 336 446 191 696, Passcode: QHt4pm

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Thu 08 May 12:30: Towards Precision in the Diagnostic Profiling of Patients: Leveraging Symptom Dynamics in the Assessment and Treatment of Mental Disorders

Thu, 17/04/2025 - 11:30
Towards Precision in the Diagnostic Profiling of Patients: Leveraging Symptom Dynamics in the Assessment and Treatment of Mental Disorders

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a heterogeneous mental disorder. International guidelines present overall symptom severity as the key dimension for clinical characterisation. However, additional layers of heterogeneity may reside within severity levels related to how symptoms interact with one-another in a patient, called symptom dynamics. We investigate these individual differences by estimating the proportion of patients that display differences in their symptom dynamics while sharing the same diagnosis and overall symptom severity. We show that examining symptom dynamics provides information about the person-specific psychopathological expression of patients beyond severity levels by revealing how symptoms aggravate each other over time. These results suggest that symptom dynamics may serve as a promising new dimension for clinical characterisation. Areas of opportunity are outlined for the field of precision psychiatry in uncovering disorder evolution patterns (e.g., spontaneous recovery; critical worsening) and the identification of granular treatment effects by moving toward investigations that leverage symptom dynamics as their foundation. Future work aimed at investigating the cascading dynamics underlying depression onset and maintenance using the large-scale (N > 5.5 million) CIPA Study are outlined.

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Thu 22 May 12:30: Beyond diagnostic classification: Characterising clinical phenotype and outcomes using real-world healthcare datasets

Wed, 16/04/2025 - 17:15
Beyond diagnostic classification: Characterising clinical phenotype and outcomes using real-world healthcare datasets

In this talk I will describe how real-world datasets comprising insurance claims and electronic health record (EHR) data can be analysed to provide novel insights into the clinical outcomes of people with mental disorders and how the analysis of unstructured, free text clinical assessments using natural language processing (NLP) enables the ascertainment and analysis of rich clinical data that cannot be obtained from structured datasets.

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Thu 19 Jun 12:30: Beyond Resilience: How to Use Adversity as Fuel for Growth

Wed, 16/04/2025 - 16:08
Beyond Resilience: How to Use Adversity as Fuel for Growth

Brian Pennie is a former heroin addict turned neuroscientist who’s on a mission to show people that change is possible. Since embracing his second chance at life in 2013, he has become a doctor of neuroscience and psychology, a consultant to some of the world’s largest organisations, and the founder of his company, Change is Possible. www.brianpennie.com

We are not born resilient, nor does it come naturally. Resilience develops through our lived experiences, forged over time by learning how to overcome adversity. But resilience has its limits, even for the grittiest and most dogged of us, because if you take hit after hit, you’ll eventually fall. That’s why we need to move beyond resilience – learning how to use life’s challenges to our advantage and, ultimately, using adversity as our fuel for growth. With a focus on breathwork, movement, and connection, Brian will deliver a series of evidence-based tools to help you transform life’s inevitable challenges into a way to learn and grow.

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Thu 22 May 12:30: Beyond diagnostic classification: Characterising clinical phenotype and outcomes using real-world healthcare datasets

Wed, 16/04/2025 - 15:56
Beyond diagnostic classification: Characterising clinical phenotype and outcomes using real-world healthcare datasets

In this talk I will describe how real-world datasets comprising insurance claims and electronic health record (EHR) data can be analysed to provide novel insights into the clinical outcomes of people with mental disorders and how the analysis of unstructured, free text clinical assessments using natural language processing (NLP) enables the ascertainment and analysis of rich clinical data that cannot be obtained from structured datasets.

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Thu 15 May 12:30: Enactive psychiatry

Wed, 16/04/2025 - 15:51
Enactive psychiatry

One of psychiatry’s main difficulties is to articulate the relationship between the wide assortment of factors that may cause or contribute to psychiatric disorders. Such factors range from traumatic experiences to dysfunctional neurotransmitters, existential worries, economic deprivation, social exclusion, and genetic bad luck. While several models, including the biopsychosocial model, advocate an integrative account, they remain vague on how these different factors (causally) interact. By using insights from enactivism and its perspective on the relation between body, mind, and world, we can develop a clear integrative account of the many, heterogenous factors that may play a role in the development and persistence of psychiatric disorders. In this talk, I will present this enactive account of psychiatry and its implications for clinical practice.

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Thu 08 May 12:30: Towards Precision in the Diagnostic Profiling of Patients: Leveraging Symptom Dynamics in the Assessment and Treatment of Mental Disorders

Wed, 16/04/2025 - 15:39
Towards Precision in the Diagnostic Profiling of Patients: Leveraging Symptom Dynamics in the Assessment and Treatment of Mental Disorders

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a heterogeneous mental disorder. International guidelines present overall symptom severity as the key dimension for clinical characterisation. However, additional layers of heterogeneity may reside within severity levels related to how symptoms interact with one-another in a patient, called symptom dynamics. We investigate these individual differences by estimating the proportion of patients that display differences in their symptom dynamics while sharing the same diagnosis and overall symptom severity. We show that examining symptom dynamics provides information about the person-specific psychopathological expression of patients beyond severity levels by revealing how symptoms aggravate each other over time. These results suggest that symptom dynamics may serve as a promising new dimension for clinical characterisation. Areas of opportunity are outlined for the field of precision psychiatry in uncovering disorder evolution patterns (e.g., spontaneous recovery; critical worsening) and the identification of granular treatment effects by moving toward investigations that leverage symptom dynamics as their foundation. Future work aimed at investigating the cascading dynamics underlying depression onset and maintenance using the large-scale (N > 5.5 million) CIPA Study are outlined.

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Thu 12 Jun 12:30: Brain Boost: Healthy Habits for a Happier Life

Wed, 16/04/2025 - 15:34
Brain Boost: Healthy Habits for a Happier Life

Our mental health is just as important as our physical health. In times of stress, enhanced cognition and reserves of resilience are vital in maintaining our wellbeing. This talk will draw on evidence-based ways to improve our brain health, cognition, and overall wellbeing based on Brain Boost: Healthy Habits for a Happier Life. We will explore the benefits of exercise, diet, sleep, social interactions, kindness, mindfulness and learning and how adopting these healthy habits will lead to a longer, happier life and a flourishing society.

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