People

I am a researcher in image analysis. I developed theoretical and application oriented methods. I have been working with different kind of images: medical, food, radar, robotic and forensic images. Recently I worked with skin lesion images and retinal images. See my 100+ publications (google scholar or researchgate) for more details

I am presently working MR brain images.

I am analysing subtle symptoms of cerebral SVD in in relation to imaging correlates, which is important in order to translate radiological evidence of ‘silent’ SVD into clinically significant outcomes. I am characterising these symptoms in relation to progression of SVD radiologically based on longitudinal disease progression on MRI. This work will allow us to identify those individuals with early features of SVD, before significant disease progression occurs. Identifying the disease early will be central to future dementia and stroke prevention. I am currently involved in the Mild Stroke Study 3, the R4VaD Study and the LACI-2 Study.

Supervisors: Prof. Joanna Wardlaw and Dr Fergus Doubal

Structural brain ageing

White matter disease

Cognitive ageing

Stroke

Image Analysis

Alzheimer's disease and other dementias

Zhihong's main research interests are in medical ultrasound and photonics, working closely with clinicians and industrial collaborators to maximise research impact and facilitate translation into practice. She utilises acoustics and optics as tools to understand and explore the mechanisms of tissue response, which in turn support new research initiatives on tissue characterization and interventional medical devices.

She leads a wide range of activities incorporating tissue mimicking phantom fabrication; mechanical, acoustic, thermal and optical characterization of tissue; 3D reconstruction of human anatomy and simulation, vibration analysis and robotics.

Uniquely, her group have developed a method to combine ultrasound and photonics to investigate the underlying, common physical mechanisms in three diverse areas: ultrasound and photonics instrumentation for ultrasonic surgical tool design and characterization; sono- and optical- elastography for medical diagnosis; and image guided and robotic assisted interventions.

My research is mainly focused on investigating the cognitive and neural correlates of a range of neuropsychiatric symptoms (e.g., delusions, sleep disorder, depression, apathy).

I am interested in improving the diagnosis/detection of Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia (especially in the earliest stages) through customised assessment methods or through the use of multivariate markers.  Variants of these markers could also be used to stratify patients or as outcome measures for clinical drug trials.  Relatedly, I have interests in developing methods to speed drug development.

I have projects underway to develop serum blood-based biomarkers for the dementias (in combination with other methods), to investigate the diagnostic utility of customised neuropsychological tests (and analysis methods), and in the near future hope to begin a project that will utilise electrophysiological methods.

I have an additional research line that focuses on understanding the neural bases of hypnosis and suggestibility. By targeting individual differences suggestion can be used to study elements of psychosis, changes in agency, and other interesting psychological and behavioural phenomena.

Within my research I use structural magnetic resonance imaging techniques (voxel-based morphometry and cortical thickness assessment), functional magnetic resonance imaging (brain activity and connectivity analyses), electrophysiological methods, and neuropsychological assessment.

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

- cogntive strategies in anaemia

- neuromarketing and

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