Feindel BIC Lecture Series - June 30 @ 1pm

‘ ’ ‘A combined MEG and fMRI investigation of human object representations Radoslaw M. Cichy & Dimitrios Pantazis McGovern Institute & Martinos Imaging Center (MIT) Monday June 30 @ 1pm – deGrandpré Communication Centre Montreal Neurological Institute (3801 University), McGill University′ ’
Written on 2014–06–25.

Abstract — We propose a novel way to combine imaging techniques that merges the time and location information of MEG and fMRI scanners using a computational approach called representational similarity analysis (RSA), which relies on the fact that two similar objects (such as two human faces) that produce similar signals in MEG will also produce similar signals in fMRI. We introduced the technique in our recent work (Cichy, Pantazis, Oliva Nature Neuroscience, 2014), proving that this approach is not only feasible, but promises a rich design for many novel findings. We recorded MEG and fMRI responses to 92 object images. We show that we can estimate the timing of object categorization in the first stages of human vision, and discriminate transient from persistent neural signals during visual object processing. We also illustrate how to extend the approach across species (macaque monkeys).

Recent publication: Cichy, R. M.; Pantazis, D. & Oliva, A., Resolving human object recognition in space and time. Nat Neurosci., 2014, 17, 455–462

Radoslaw M. Cichy studied Cognitive Science at the University of Osnabruck, Germany, and philosophy at the University of Oxford. He got a Masters degree in Medical Neurosciences at the Charite University Medicine Berlin, Germany, and worked there afterwards as a research assistant in transcranial brain stimulation. Radoslaw did his PhD with John-Dylan Haynes at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Berlin, studying visual object recognition with fMRI. Now, he is doing a PostDoc with Aude Oliva, combining MEG, fMRI and computational modelling to study scene and object perception.

Dimitrios Pantazis joined the McGovern Institute in 2010, is the director of the recently established Magnetoencephalography (MEG) Laboratory within the Martinos Imaging Center at MIT. Before moving to MIT, he was a research assistant professor at the University of Southern California. His research focuses on the study of brain cognitive networks, and he has over a decade of experience in developing methods for the analysis of MEG data.