FYI
******************************************************************
Dr. Ekaterini Klepousniotou
Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuropsychology
Institute of Psychological Sciences
University of Leeds
Leeds LS2 9JT
UK
Tel: +44 (0)113 3435716
Fax: +44 (0)113 3435749
________________________________
From: nlc_distribution-bounces(a)nlc2009.angularis.org [nlc_distribution-bounces(a)nlc2009.angularis.org] On Behalf Of Uri Hasson [uhasson(a)gmail.com]
Sent: 22 September 2010 07:00
To: nlc_distribution(a)nlc2009.angularis.org
Subject: [NLC2010] Two postdoctoral positions (fMRI, MEG) and RA/Lab Manager position; University of Trento, Italy.
Dear all:
Applications are invited for two postdoctoral positions and one RA/Lab-manager position funded by an ERC (European Research Council) Starting Grant (PI: Uri Hasson; http://www.hasson.org). Individuals of all nationalities are encouraged to apply. Inquiries can be addressed to uri.hasson(a)unitn.it<mailto:uri.hasson@unitn.it>, and meetings can be arranged at the Neurobiology of Language Conference. Application forms will be posted at http://bit.ly/bntHrv within 14 days.
The 4-year project examines the cognitive mechanisms and neural systems by which the human brain codes the recent past and predicts the immediate future. It uses neuroimaging, behavioral studies, and eye tracking methods. The ideal candidates are highly motivated and creative individuals, capable of working independently and in groups, who will thrive in a dynamic startup-like work environment. Experience with computational modeling of complex systems is helpful, as is prior work on neuroimaging of syntax/semantics. The research takes place at the Center for Mind/Brain Sciences at the University of Trento, located in the autonomous region of Trentino in Northern Italy. Salaries are comparable to those offered by research institutions in the US and Europe, include benefits and health insurance, and are commensurate with training and experience. Expected starting date for all positions is Jan 1st, 2011.
Positions offered:
a. Postdoctoral position (2-4 years) for fMRI research. The person will be responsible for the design of several fMRI studies, conducting data analysis and leading the write-up of scientific work. The person will have access to the center’s onsite 4T fMRI scanner. REQUIREMENTS: expertise with fMRI design and analysis methods and a solid background in cognitive neuroscience. HELPFUL: knowledge of functional connectivity methods including those applicable to resting state data, analysis of perfusion (ASL) data, R/Matlab programming, good understanding of UNIX. Interest in MEG methods.
b. Postdoctoral position (2-4 years) for Magnetoencephalography (MEG) research. The person will be responsible for the design of several MEG studies, conducting data analysis and leading the write-up of scientific work. The person will have access to the center’s onsite MEG apparatus and 4T fMRI scanner. REQUIREMENTS: expertise with MEG techniques and a solid background in cognitive neuroscience. HELPFUL: Knowledge of coherence analysis and pattern classifier methods; knowledge of fMRI analysis techniques and the integration of fMRI and MEG data.
C. Research Assistant/ Lab Manager. A 2-year position is available. The individual will be responsible for analysis of fMRI datasets, programming and conducting fMRI studies, and monitoring computer hardware. This position is ideal for recent college graduates considering future graduate study in cognitive neuroscience. REQUIREMENTS: Experience with fMRI analysis and good knowledge of Italian. HELPFUL: a bachelor's degree in psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, or computer science. Experience with diverse computing environments (Linux/OSX/Windows), programming (python/perl/shell scripting, or R) and relational databases.
About the University of Trento: In 2009, The University of Trento ranked first in the Italian national ranking published by the Italian Ministry of Education. The ranking is based on the quality of the research and teaching activities, as well as the success in attracting funds from the European Commission, awarded for international research projects.
PsychoPy: “PsychoPy is an open-source application to allow the
presentation of stimuli and collection of data for a wide range of
neuroscience, psychology and psychophysics experiments.
It’s a free, powerful alternative to Presentation™ or e-Prime™ . It’s
written in Python (a free alternative to Matlab™ )”.
http://www.psychopy.org/
********************************************************************
Philip Quinlan E-Mail: ptq1(a)york.ac.uk
Department of Psychology FAX: (01904) 433181
The University of York Tel: (01904) 430000 Ext. 3135
Heslington Direct : (01904) 433135
York
YO10 5DD
U.K.
********************************************************************
Dear All,
Apparently, we are in the running for THE University of the Year. The
folks who make the decision are visiting YNiC tomorrow. To make a good
impression on them, I'd value the presence of those who are or have been
engaged in neuroimaging research at YNiC. The tour of YNiC starts at
4pm and should finish at 4:30pm.
Apologies for cross postings.
Thanks
Tony
Dear Users
Today (4-5 pm YNiC open plan) Miriam Johnson from the Hull York
Medical School will give a talk on "Magnetoencephalography appearances
in breathless patients with and without air flow directed to the face."
Everyone is welcome to attend.
Best wishes
Rebecca
Background: Intractable breathlessness is a common and devastating
consequence of many diseases. Breathlessness affects all aspects of
life, causing major distress for both patient and caregiver. Many
patients face psychological, social and physical repercussions of
persistent breathlessness, which require, long-term NHS support
especially out of hours.
Research into possible mechanisms for the perception of breathlessness
has largely concentrated on peripheral pathways. However there is a
growing interest in functional brain imaging using positron electron
tomography scanning and functional MRI (fMRI), mainly in induced
breathlessness in healthy volunteers. Similarities with pain perception
are striking. However, little is known of these processes in patients
with chronic breathlessness due to lung disease, indeed, one study
suggests that patients with asthma demonstrate habituation and
down-regulation of perceived unpleasantness due to breathlessness.
Moreover we know nothing of the effect of interventions to improve
breathlessness; patients with chronic breathlessness tolerate fMRI
poorly. Magnetoencephalography (MEG) scanning is a possibly tolerated
method but has not been tried.
There is some clinical evidence that the use of a handheld fan reduces
the sensation of breathlessness and may reduce the need for nebulisers
and oxygen. The fan directs airflow to the area innervated by the 2nd
and 3rd branches of the trigeminal nerve. It is universally available,
cheap, non-invasive and easy to use in any setting alongside any other
breathlessness intervention with no contra-indications. As the cost to
the NHS of oxygen, nebulisers and inhalers and hospital admission are
considerable, this area warrants research both with regard to clinical
effect but also to mechanism of action.
--
Dr. Rebecca E. Millman
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
York
YO10 5DG
Email: rem(a)ynic.york.ac.uk
Tel: 01904 435 5373
I ran 3 identical first level FSL analyses of a localiser scan in order to
compare the different bet settings (applied to all structural and functional
images). I can confirm that BET with the recursive flag (-R) produces the
best outcomes with higher Z values when transformed to standard space. The
-B option looks good when examining the resulting BET images, and deals
nicely with residual neck artefacts, but actually produces worse results at
the level of the statistics.
Below are images showing zstats from each first level analysis (face-place
localiser), converted to standard space and displayed on the MNI brain.
PPA (blue), FFA (orange), standard space - BET with no options
http://i.imgur.com/q3FdX.png
PPA (blue), FFA (orange), standard space - BET with -B option
http://i.imgur.com/QC9al.png
PPA (blue), FFA (orange), standard space - BET with recursive option (-R)
http://i.imgur.com/Nqob1.png
Activation is more extensive and more significant with the -R option.
Images of the structural scans after each bet extraction can be seen in the
album below
http://laserdragon.imgur.com/brainimaging
It seems that the standard pipeline involves using the -R option anyway, but
I thought people might be interested to see the difference it makes, and
that the -B option turns out to be pretty bad.
Chris
On Mon, 13, Sep, 2010 at 05:53:51PM +0100, Chris Racey spoke thus..
> Actually, after my last message, Padraig came to see me and mentioned
> another option -R which iteratively repeats the BET procedure from different
> starting points. He suggested that this may achieve the same improved
> result. I tried this option instead and indeed it does still seem to be an
> improvement. However it runs considerably quicker and doesn't seem to result
> in intensity changes in the image.
That was going to be my suggestion too. I don't now normally run bet
without using the -R flag. As Andre says, changing the starting co-ords
can also help - for the record, the standard automatic cleanup for the
structural scans currently uses -c 90 116 166 but doesn't use -R. I'm
not entirely sure why it doesn't as I thought it did (and was about to
say it did until I double checked).
I'll probably change this to use -R by default (for the automatic ones)
unless someone can remind me why it doesn't...
Mark
--
Mark Hymers
York Neuroimaging Centre
the -c option flag too can be useful and has virtually no cost .. this
simple sets the centre of gravity to which the initial sphere is fitted.
find the coordinates of the AC in your participant (slice numbers) set
the -c flag to this and usually the initial extraction is vastly improved.
Andre'
Chris Racey wrote:
> Thanks Tony,
>
> That's a good point, I will be in a position to do this comparison in the
> next day or so, after the analysis I'm running finishes.
>
> Actually, after my last message, Padraig came to see me and mentioned
> another option -R which iteratively repeats the BET procedure from different
> starting points. He suggested that this may achieve the same improved
> result. I tried this option instead and indeed it does still seem to be an
> improvement. However it runs considerably quicker and doesn't seem to result
> in intensity changes in the image.
>
> I will investigate the results of these procedures on statistical outcomes
> and post a comparison in the next couple of days.
>
> Chris
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ynic-users-bounces(a)ynic.york.ac.uk
> [mailto:ynic-users-bounces@ynic.york.ac.uk] On Behalf Of
> am501(a)psych.york.ac.uk
> Sent: 13 September 2010 17:43
> To: Chris Racey
> Cc: ynic-users(a)ynic.york.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: BET settings
>
> Thanks for this Chris. Have you any side by side fMRI analysis with and
> without the -B option? Ti would be interesting to see whether or the
> results of statistical treatments change and in what way.
>
> Tony
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>>
>>
>> I was having some problems bet extracting some of my structural scans, I
>> was
>> getting a lot of left over neck that was screwing up the alignment. I
>> noticed the current version of bet has a new option flag (to me at least),
>> which focuses on cleaning up the neck.
>>
>>
>>
>> The option is -B . When using this flag the processing takes considerably
>> longer, something along the lines of 10-15 mins per scan. However, not
>> only
>> did it resolve the issue, but the resulting image looks cleaner and more
>> precise than I would expect from a normal bet. I've attached a comparison
>> image so you can see the effect.
>>
>>
>>
>> I did similar comparisons running this flag with functional data and it
>> also
>> shows improvements. At the moment I'm re-processing my data files in this
>> way before running my analysis.
>>
>>
>>
>> I thought I'd mention this in case it might be a useful option for other
>> people to use, but also in case anyone knows any reason why it might be
>> problematic. I'd be keen to know if anyone knows of any reason why I
>> shouldn't use it? I notice the overall intensity seems slightly lower when
>> this flag has been used, is this likely to be a problem?
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Chris Racey
>>
>> --
>> ynic-users mailing list
>> ynic-users(a)ynic.york.ac.uk
>> https://www.ynic.york.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/ynic-users
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ynic-users mailing list
> ynic-users(a)ynic.york.ac.uk
> https://www.ynic.york.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/ynic-users
>
>
> --
> ynic-users mailing list
> ynic-users(a)ynic.york.ac.uk
> https://www.ynic.york.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/ynic-users
--
Andre'
************************************************************************
Andre Gouws
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Heslington
YO10 5DG
Tel: +44 (0) 1904 435327
Fax: +44 (0) 1904 435356
Thanks for this Chris. Have you any side by side fMRI analysis with and
without the -B option? Ti would be interesting to see whether or the
results of statistical treatments change and in what way.
Tony
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> I was having some problems bet extracting some of my structural scans, I
> was
> getting a lot of left over neck that was screwing up the alignment. I
> noticed the current version of bet has a new option flag (to me at least),
> which focuses on cleaning up the neck.
>
>
>
> The option is -B . When using this flag the processing takes considerably
> longer, something along the lines of 10-15 mins per scan. However, not
> only
> did it resolve the issue, but the resulting image looks cleaner and more
> precise than I would expect from a normal bet. I've attached a comparison
> image so you can see the effect.
>
>
>
> I did similar comparisons running this flag with functional data and it
> also
> shows improvements. At the moment I'm re-processing my data files in this
> way before running my analysis.
>
>
>
> I thought I'd mention this in case it might be a useful option for other
> people to use, but also in case anyone knows any reason why it might be
> problematic. I'd be keen to know if anyone knows of any reason why I
> shouldn't use it? I notice the overall intensity seems slightly lower when
> this flag has been used, is this likely to be a problem?
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris Racey
>
> --
> ynic-users mailing list
> ynic-users(a)ynic.york.ac.uk
> https://www.ynic.york.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/ynic-users
>
Hi all,
I was having some problems bet extracting some of my structural scans, I was
getting a lot of left over neck that was screwing up the alignment. I
noticed the current version of bet has a new option flag (to me at least),
which focuses on cleaning up the neck.
The option is -B . When using this flag the processing takes considerably
longer, something along the lines of 10-15 mins per scan. However, not only
did it resolve the issue, but the resulting image looks cleaner and more
precise than I would expect from a normal bet. I've attached a comparison
image so you can see the effect.
I did similar comparisons running this flag with functional data and it also
shows improvements. At the moment I'm re-processing my data files in this
way before running my analysis.
I thought I'd mention this in case it might be a useful option for other
people to use, but also in case anyone knows any reason why it might be
problematic. I'd be keen to know if anyone knows of any reason why I
shouldn't use it? I notice the overall intensity seems slightly lower when
this flag has been used, is this likely to be a problem?
Cheers,
Chris Racey