Heymans Colloquium Prof. J. Riege BCI-approaches for applied and basic research on human cognition and motor control

LECTURER Prof. dr. rer. nat. Jochem Riege (Applied Neurocognitive Psychology, University of Oldenburg and Knight Lab, Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California)

TITLE BCI-approaches for applied and basic research on human cognition and motor control

DATE & TIME Thursday, 31 October 2013, 16.00 – 17.00 hrs

LOCATION Room M.0061, Munting building, Grote Kruisstraat 2/1, Groningen

ABSTRACT Understanding how the human brain codes incoming sensory information, transforms them into manageable concepts, makes decision, and controls motor action should be the key to understand and predict human behavior from brain activity. Unfortunately, classical confirmatory significance testing is very limited in revealing relevant key features of brain activity. We investigate the brain-processes in the sensation-perception-action-cycle by combining machine-learning methods with electrocorticography, magnetoencephalography, electroencenphalography, and (real-time) functional magnetic resonance imaging. I will present some of our recent studies on predicting ongoing perception, cognition, decision making and motor control in on- and offline single trial analyses. In addition, I will show that BCI-type approaches can be used to investigate structural features of information representation in the neural code and to judge their relevance for predicting ongoing behavior and cogniti! on.