Units

Neuropsychology and Functional Neuroimaging Research Unit

Researches conducted at the Neuropsychology and Functional Neuroimaging Research Unit [UR2NF - Unité de Recherches en Neuropsychologie et Neuroimagerie Fonctionnelle] are mainly but not exclusively focused on investigating the relationships between sleep and memory consolidation processes, and in a wider perspective centered on the interrelationships between cognitive processes and vigilance states, including sleep and biological rhythms. A specific focus is made on the processes by which novel representations are created in memory and the processes by which novel information is consolidated in long-term memory. We are also interested in the understanding and investigation of major neuropsychological syndromes. Furthermore, UR2NF members are deeply involved in numerous collaborations with other research units and departments of the ULB faculties (psychology, medicine, Erasme hospital ...) and other Belgian and foreign universities in the framework of our expertise in functional neuroimaging techniques. UR2NF is affiliated at CRCN - Centre de Recherches en Cognition et Neurosciences at the Faculté des Sciences Psychologiques et de l'Education de l'ULB, and at UNI - ULB Neurosciences Institute (http://uni.ulb.ac.be).

Research Unit in Cognitive Neurosciences

UNESCOG investigates the organisation and functioning of the language and cognitive system while taking its biological substrate into account.Experimental psychologists, neuropsychologists and electrophysiologists work on both normal and brain-damaged individuals in the following domains: audio-visual interactions, auditory and visual attention, speech perception and recognition, reading disturbances, cognitive consequences of schooling, literacy and ageing, organisation of the semantic system, retrieval of information from memory (in particular episodic and prospective), re-education of working memory, impairments of executive functions and of social representations due to brain lesion. Besides experimental approaches from cognitive psychology and neuropsyclology, UNESCOG's researchers employ methods of neuropsychological patient examination and of cerebral imagery (recording of evoked potentials and of hemodynamic changes).

Projetcs

Genetics and ADHD: complementary approaches of case-control association studies and trios with exploration of the relationship between genotype-intermediate phenotype and imaging

FRSM 3.4.516.08 .F. Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a multifactorial pathology with complex determinism affecting between 3 and 5% of school-aged children. Alterations of executive functions observed at the clinicial level are probably subtended by dysfunctions in dopaminergic and noradrenergic systems. Neurocognitive measurements associated with neuroimaging are promising tools to explore new 'intermediate phenotypes' in the genetic investigation of the ADHD. Here, we aim at identifying vulnerability genes in ADHD, looking at novel phenotypes by using neuropsychology and functional neuroimaging (IRMf and MEG) techniques. Main promotor: I. Massat (Erasme hospital, ULB), associated promotor P. Peigneux