Neurotechnology and Neural Plasticity Lab

In the Neurotechnology and Neural Plasticity lab, we investigate how the brain represents information, and stores and retrieves memories. Topics currently under investigation include episodic memory, spatial cognition, the effects of alcohol, stress, depression, exercise, birth control pills and other neurogenesis-modulating lifestyle factors on memory, hippocampal-cortical interactions in memory encoding and consolidation, the role of hippocampal neurogenesis in memory, the role of hippocampal-parietal circuits in spatial imagery and navigation, auditory cortical plasticity and reorganization after hearing loss, and the design and evaluation of intelligent hearing aids. We use a combination of computational modelling and empirical studies using behavioural measures and fMRI to investigate the neural bases of learning and memory.



Members of the Lab

Faculty
Sue Becker
Graduate students
Nick Dery
Kiret Dhindsa
Aaron Goldstein
Honours thesis students
Vlad Drobinin
Ibrahim Hasan
Kieran Healey
Shannon Limoges
Natalie Michalski
Collins Oghor
Ranya Amirthamanoharan
Past members of the lab



Current Members of the Lab

Sue Becker : Principal Investigator. Research interest: computational models of learning and memory.
Nick Dery, Neuroscience PhD candidate. Investigating the functional role of hippocampal neurogenesis in the human brain: cognitive and neurobiological correlates.  
deryn at live dot ca
Kiret Dhindsa, School of Computational & Engineering Science MSc candidate. Brain-computer interfaces, VR and fMRi studies of spatial cognition and imagery  
kiretd at gmail dot com
Aaron Goldstein, Psychology Neuroscience & Behaviour MSc candidate. Effects of early alcohol bingeing on memory and cognition.  
goldsam at mcmaster dot ca



Past Members of the Lab

Visiting professors, postdocs and research associates

Dezhong Yao, Ph D(1991), Professor(1995). Visiting Professor between November 2000 and May 2001. He is at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (www.uestc.edu.cn) Chengdu City 610054, China Tel: 86-028-3203139(home)?3202522(office), Fax:86-28-3254131. e-mail: dyao at uestc dot edu dot cn. His main interest is brain functional analysis and modeling.
Hwang-Soo Kim, Professor, Department of Computer Science, College of Natural Sciences, Kyungpook National University, Taegu, Korea. Visiting Professor in the Neural Networks Lab at McMaster 1996-1997.
Muhammed Dur-e-ahmad, Postdoctoral fellow. Computational modelling of the effects of stress on hippocampal structural remodelling and neurogenesis.  
Andrew Smith: Post-doctoral fellow. Reinforcement learning; models of dopaminergic control in motivated behaviours.  
Steve Joordens: Post-doctoral fellow. Models and empirical studies of human memory.  
joordens at psych dot utoronto dot ca. Steve is now a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto.
Melissa Dominguez, Research Associate; models of auditory cortical dynamics and reorganization after peripheral damage.

Graduate Students

Trent Toulouse, PhD, Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour. Modelling dopaminergic control of learning and action choice  
ttoulouse at gmail dot com
Jeff Bruce, MSc, Psychology Neuroscience & Behaviour. Psychophysical and EEG measurements of auditory perception in hearing aid wearers.  
jeffbruce at gmail dot com
Xue Han: Psych PhD graduate. Spatial memory and navigation.  
hanx3 at mcmaster dt ca
Michael Chrostowski: Neuroscience PhD graduate, co-supervised by Ian Bruce, ECE. Modelling development and treatment of tinnitus in auditory cortex after hearing loss  
chrostm at mcmaster dot ca
Brandon Aubie, Psychology Neuroscience & Behaviour PhD graduate, co-supervised by Paul Faure. Modelling neuronal duration tuning in the auditory system.  
aubiebn at mcmaster dot ca. Current position: Bioinformatics Research Technician, Biointerfaces Institute, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
Malcolm Pilgrim, Psychology Neuroscience & Behaviour MSc graduate. Modelling neuronal duration tuning in the auditory system.  
pilgrim at mcmaster dot ca
Chris Sevigny: Psych MSc graduate. Modelling spatial memory and navigation.  
Chris Gilbert: Psych PhD graduate. Computational modelling and empirical studies of free recall strategies in human memory.  
Steve R. Howell: Psych PhD graduate. Thesis topic: Modelling human language acquisition. Current position: Chair, Psychology Department, Keystone College, and Co-ordinator of General Education Assessment.  
steven dot howell at keystone dot edu.
Damian Jankowicz: Psych PhD graduate. Models of semantic memory.  
jank at psychology dot mcmaster dot ca
.
Patrick Byrne: Psych PhD graduate. Models of spatial memory. Current position: postdoctoral fellow, York University. 
byrne at psychology dot mcmaster dot ca
Le Yang, PhD student, Electrical and Computer Engineering. Research topic: computational models of cortical reorganization after hearing loss.  
Arnold Liwanag: Psych MSc candidate. Defected to industry.
.
Jean Lim: Psych M.Sc. graduate.. Thesis project: Modelling hippocampal-frontal cortex interaction. Current position: Associate Director, Marketing Research, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals.
jclim5 at yahoo dot com
Chris Lesner, CompSci MSc graduate. Thesis work: Image Compression.
Gaurav Patel, Elec. Eng. MSc graduate, co-supervised by Simon Haykin. Thesis work: Modelling Non-linear Dynamics by means of Kalman Filter trained Recurrent nets.
Ken Seergobin, Psychology M.Sc. graduate. Thesis topic: Modelling visual learning based on temporal coherence. Current position: programmer/analyst, Ian Spence lab in Engineering Psychology.

Undergraduate Thesis Students

Melissa Hebscher, Honours Psychology 2012. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Henna Khan, Bachelor's Life Sciences 2012. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Mark Shaw, Honours Psychology 2012. Thesis project: Models of hippocampal learning and memory.  
Katelyn Muir, Honours Health Sciences, 2012. Thesis project: Psychoacoustical assessment of hearing aids.  
Aaron Goldstein, Honours Psychology 2012. Thesis project: Memory and alcohol bingeing.  
Deanna Minnervini, Honours Psychology 2012. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Catherine Lau, Honours Psychology 2012. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Kathryn Crevier, Honours Psychology 2011. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Melanie Cochrane, Honours Psychology 2011. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Ribal Haddad, Honours Psychology 2011. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Snir Seitelbach, Honours Psychology 2011. Thesis project: Memory and alcohol bingeing.  
Jessica Tran, Honours Psychology 2010. Thesis project: Spatial memory and depression.  
Oxana Roudenko, Honours Psychology 2010. Thesis project: Spatial memory encoding.  
Malcolm Pilgrim, Honours Psychology 2010. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Anthony Morgan, Honours Psychology 2010. Thesis project: Memory and alcohol bingeing.  
Anteneh Kassa, Honours Psychology 2010. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Lara Georgis, Honours Psychology 2010, co-supervised by Larry Roberts and Dan Bosnyak. Thesis project: Tinnitus and residual inhibition.  
Douna Montazeralghaem, Honours Psychology 2009. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Cindy Narinesingh, Honours Psychology 2009. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Samir Moosa, Honours Psychology 2008. Thesis project: Investigating hippocampal and frontal functions affected by stress and depression. 
Sivan Rotenberg, Honours Psychology 2008. Thesis project: Memory, stress and depression.  
Jillian O'Connor, Honours Psychology 2008. Thesis project: VR studies of spatial memory. 
Danielle Hulan, Honours Psychology 2008. Thesis project: VR studies of spatial memory. 
Sarah Goodwin, Honours Psychology 2007. Thesis project: A VR study of spatial memory for objects under viewpoint changes.  
Christine Truong, Honours Psychology 2007. Thesis project: Investigating retroactive and proactive interference effects in memory, and their correlates with stress and depression.  
Meredith Mackenzie, Honours Psychology 2007. Thesis project: Deficits in hippocampal and frontal cognitive functions associated with stress and depression.  
Karim Mitha, Honours Psychology 2007. Thesis project: VR studies of viewpoint dependence in memory of navigationally relevant objects and landmarks.  
Tina Schoenhoffer, Honours Psychology 2007. Thesis project: Computational model of hippocampal coding and neurogenesis using the Restricted Boltzmann Machine.  
Peter Sheffield, Honours Psychology 2007. Thesis project: Investigating auditory after-effects and tinnitus suppression.  
Riziq Sayegh, Honours Psychology 2007. Thesis project: Computational model of rhythm extraction in music perception, co-supervised by Laurel Trainor.  
Matthew Turnock, Honours Neural Computation 2006. Thesis project: Models of hippocampally-mediated contextual modulation of conditioned learning and behaviour.  
Kathleen Drennan-Scace, Honours Psychology 2006. Thesis project: Models of hippocampally gating of prefrontal cortex.  
Kamal Malhie, Honours Psychology 2006. Thesis project: VR studies of spatial memory.  
Sabrina Mohamed, Honours Psychology 2006. Thesis project: Effects of stress and depression on hippocampal-dependent memory functions.  
Josee Yang, Honours Psychology 2005. Thesis project: Models of ECT, kindling, neurogenesis.  
Dylan Smith, Honours Neural Computation 2005. Thesis project: Models of reinforcement learning  
Haemin Han, Honours Psychology 2005. Honours thesis: Computational models of hippocampal neurogenesis.  
Rohini Kalia, Honours Psychology 2005. Honours thesis: Computational models of contextual gating in conditioning.  
Kianosh Keyvani, Honours Psychology student. Honours thesis: Computational models of spatial coding of scenes and objects.  
Lori Giles, Honours Psychology 2005. Honours thesis: Virtual reality studies of human spatial memory.  
Shilpy Gupta: Honours Neural Computation 2004. Honours thesis: Intelligent hearing aid project.  
Andrew Chan: Honours Neural Computation 2003. Honours thesis: Models of neuromodulatory action in learning and memory.  
chanman at fixy dot org
Jordan Hoath: Graduate, Honours Psychology. 2003 Honours thesis: Empirical studies of strategic memory use.
Pat O'Banion: Honours Neural Computation, 2002. Honours thesis: Intelligent hearing aid project.  
Marcia Cushing: Graduate, Honours Psychology, 1999. Thesis title: Associative multiplication: a neural network model.
Adeline Chin: Graduate, Honours Neural Computation, 1999. Thesis topic: models of hippocampal memory system.
Ted Meeds: Graduate, Honours Neural Computation, 1998. Thesis topic: models of the hippocampal memory system.
Sara Page: Graduate, Honours Psychology, 1997. Thesis title: The impact of temporal coherence on the formation of visual representations.
Rick Taylor: Graduate, Honours Psychology, 1996. Thesis title: Filtering and tuning by the neocortex-thalamus complex.
Ken Jobity: Graduate, Honours Psychology, 1996. Thesis project: Neural networks for medical image compression.
Steve Holik: Graduate, Honours Psychology, 1996. Thesis title: A neural model of episodic memory.

 
 


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