Cognitive Control, Motivation, and the IFJ

Nothing related to infants or social development, for a change. Bernadette’s new paper on the role of the IFJ (inferior frontal junction) for the interplay between cognitive control and motivation is out! So, in the manuscript she is investigating, how this brain region, the IFJ, might be involved in the observation that we are better at switching between two tasks when we get more money for doing the tasks correct. To find out more, have a look here:  

Hippmann, B., Kuhlemann, I., Bäumer, T., Bahlmann, J., Münte, T.F., & Jessen, S. (in press). Boosting the effect of reward on cognitive control using TMS over the left IFJ. Neuropsychologia, 125, 109-115.

https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1YYUT6TBFiEvX

Renate-Maaß research award 2018

We’re extremely excited to announce that Sarah just won the Renate-Maaß research award for her work on social development in infancy at the University of Lübeck! Huge thanks to the university and the Renate-Maaß-foundation, and importantly to all the families who participate in our studies and make our work possible.

More infos here (unfortunately only in German):

https://www.uni-luebeck.de/aktuelles/nachricht/artikel/die-preise-der-universitaet-2018.html

What is the role of different spatial frequencies in emotion processing in infancy?

In our newest study, we investigated how high spatial frequencies (so very fine details in a picture) compared to low spatial frequencies (so rather broad shapes) contribute to emotion processing in infancy:

Jessen, S. & Grossmann, T. (in press). Exploring the role of spatial frequency information during neural emotion processing in human infants. Front. Hum. Neurosci.