People

• Neuropsychological assessment of memory, attention and executive functions in the context of brain injury and healthy ageing.
• Cognitive rehabilitation interventions (eg Goal Management Training).
• Functional imaging of the effects of cognitive rehabilitation interventions.
• Treatment of mood disorders after stroke (music based interventions and positive psychotherapy).

I keep an unwavering interested in how our visual system deals with ongoing dynamic stimulation as we experience it in our everyday lives.

I also undertake frequent excursions into the areas of multi-sensory processing, intrinsic brain rhythms and, most recently, relationships between rhythmic brain activity and other physiological signals (pupil diameter, for example).

My methods of choice are the "fast" neuroimaging techniques EEG & MEG and eye tracking.

Stirling's Mobile Cognition focus allows me to take my neuroimaging research out of the lab and into the "real world".

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Fox et al. (Fox et al., 2005)  hypothesize that a dorsal ‘goal-driven’ attention network controls environmentally directed processes (perception and action) and a ‘default network’ controls internally directed processes (memory and introspection). Within this model it was hypothesised that a ventral ‘stimulus-driven’ network facilitates reorientation in goal driven attention as well as between internally and externally directed processing modes. We have demonstrated abnormal patterns of brain activity in both the goal-driven and stimulus driven networks in individuals with a history of mild concussion (Potter et al., 2001) and in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia (Potter et al., 2008). These abnormalities may result from reduced effectiveness of frontal control caused by diffuse neurotransmitter imbalances (Rolls et al., 2008). The research extended our previous work by providing a better understanding of the role of the stimulus-driven system in switching between goal-driven and default processing modes (Mugruza-Vassallo, 2015 http://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/portal/files/8267183/CAR_FE_PhD2015_VIVA.pdf ).

Cognitive Computing and Neuroscience Group at UNTELS

Members:

Carlos Andrés Mugruza Vassallo -

Itamar Franco Salazar Reque - M.Sc. Evaluación de técnicas del problema inverso para estudio del número de señales de electroencefalograma para mecanismos cognitivos. Postgrado en Procesamiento Digital de Señales. Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería.

Yamina Andrade Huaman - “Estudio del tiempo de reacción ante un evento simulado de sismo en una adaptación de videojuego 2d para la UNTELS”. Programa de Graduación de la EAP Ing. Electrónica y Telecomunicaciones-UNTELS

Fredrich Huamani Atao - ““Diseño, implementación y evaluación de un experimento visual 2d en computación cognitiva en la UNTELS”. Programa de Graduación de la EAP Ing. Electrónica y Telecomunicaciones-UNTELS

Melina Machaca Saavedra

Daniel Cóndor

Carlos Mamani

Carlos Escobar Ulloa -

Donny Hanco -

Luz Elena Collado Arapa -

Edward Ventura Barrientos

Collaboration and Aims: Carlos Mugruza is working between Computing and Cognitive Neuroscience. In the last years he has worked with EEG and fMRI, his experiments are between oddball paradigms, Go-NoGo, 3D and augmented reality.

Since 2013, Carlos Mugruza and Douglas Potter continued the analysis of data between the University of Dundee and the Cognitive Neuroscience Group in Peru. Therefore the aims are:

- To better characterise the function of the stimulus-driven system by determining the effects of task load and distractor contingency on  the temporal relationships between the components of the stimulus-driven system.

- To better characterise the function of the stimulus-driven system by inducing more explicit switching and maintenance of processing modes.

Experimental Methods: Combine fMRI and EEG to visualise selective activation or suppression of posterior and anterior components of the ‘stimulus-driven’ control system while participants perform a number decision paradigm in which the temporal and spatial relationship of goal relevant and distractor stimuli are systematically manipulated. Basically EEG signals are modeled as

EEG = β0 + ∑ βiSi + β3A3 + Error

This equation considers 2 categorical variables as regressors.

Theoretical Methods: An information theory framework is being used. Simulation of the information of the auditory parity experiment has shown around 300 ms CTOA a saddle indentation in the curve of the information measure based on the states of the incoming signal.

Expected Outcomes: The development of optimised, inexpensive (EEG), measures of cognitive control for use assessment attention functions. Specific use are in:

- human computation in disaster and resilience

- cognitive strategies in anaemia and dyslexia

- neuromarketing and

- pharmacological efficacy in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, depression and mild cognitive impairment.

• Neuropsychology of attention and executive functions
• Embodied cognition
• Correlates of task engagement
• Children science learning