LABORATORY
OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY
|
Head: Anna GRABOWSKA Ph.D. e-mail: a.grabowska@nencki.gov.pl Staff: Dorota BEDNAREK Ph.D., Małgorzata
GUT (Ph.D. student), Anna NOWICKA Ph.D., Krystyna RYMARCZYK
MSc., Iwona SZATKOWSKA Ph.D. Renata ZALEWSKA Cooperating
graduate students: Artur MARCHEWKA, Cezary BIELE |
The investigation focuses on the neurobiological
mechanisms and principles underlying cognitive and emotional brain functions.
Our approach is to combine various methodologies (behavioural, psychophysical,
electrophysiological, clinical) to provide a wide perspective for understanding the
mechanisms of the mind. Studying both normal subjects and patients of neurological
and neurosurgical clinics enable us to identify specific brain regions involved
in behaviour.
Recent findings
In the
research that specifically focused on the role of the medial temporal lobe
structures and dorsolateral and ventro-medial
prefrontal cortices in the mediation of various memory function a series of
investigations were performed on patients with focal brain lesions localised in
the mentioned areas. Both temporal and ventro-medial
prefrontal cortices were found to be involved in retention of image-based
representation of objects and to show right-hemispheric specialisation in that
function. Moreover, a dissociation between object- and
object-location-memory after lesion to the ventro-medial
region was demonstrated. These findings support the current view that discrete
regions of the brain subserve different aspects of
memory.
In a study
on brain organisation of prosodic function (comprehension of emotional cues in
voice) patients with damage to frontal, temporo-parietal
or subcortical parts of the right hemisphere (RH) and
normal adult controls made judgements of emotions expressed by intonation in
natural and pseudo-sentences. The results showed that: 1/ women outperformed
men in prosodic abilities; 2/ RH damaged subjects had decreased comprehension
of emotional prosody, 3/ frontal lesions led to more severe impairment in women
than in men; 4/ subcortical lesions had more
disturbing effect in men. This study revealed sex differences in brain
organization of prosodic functions. The results provide further evidence for
the notions that women are more sensitive to emotional signals than are men.
Sex differences in
the functional brain organisation were also found in a study of the effects of
brain lesions on the susceptibility to visual illusions. In females, perceptual
deficits were observed after both left and right hemisphere lesions whereas in
males such deficits were present only after damage to the right hemisphere.
This finding is in agreement with a hypothesis that male brains are more
lateralised than are female brains. Moreover, in line with anatomical
observations of other authors, we have found that interhemispheric
transmission time is shorter and shows lesser directional differentiation in
women than in man. The studies on transsexual subjects provided further
evidence that prenatal action of sex hormones may change both the brain
lateralisation and gender identity.
Several studies were
performed to search for the mechanisms and principles underlying the functional
differences between the two hemispheres. The studies performed both on patients
with brain lesions and normal subjects showed that a variety of functions (e.
g. perception
of faces, stereoscopic depth, spatial frequency, visual illusion, tilt effects
and other visual-spatial patterns) is mediated primarily by the right
hemisphere. Moreover, they provided evidence that hemispheric differences may
emerge at relatively early stage of processing. This changed the widely
accepted view, which attributed the functional brain asymmetry to processes
that occur at a higher cognitive level. Our data pointed to the importance of callosal communication. The accumulated data allowed to formulate a new dynamic model in which hemispheric
specialisation is conceptualised as a complex system of different
asymmetrically represented modules tied by callosal
pathways that serve to integrate the operations carried out by those modules.
The research concerned also a controversial issue of
the relationship between handedness and cerebral organisation. We have found
that this relationship is modified by the sex factor.
Selected publications:
1. Grabowska A., Nowicka A., Szymanska O.; Sex related effects of unilateral brain
lesions on the perception of the Mueller-Lyer
illusion. Cortex 35: 231-241 (1999)
2. Nowicka A., Ringo J.L.; Eye
position-sensitive units in hippocampal formation and
inferotemporal cortex of the Macaque monkey. Eur. J.Neurosci. 12: 751-759
(2000)
3.
4. Ulatowska H., Sadowska M., Kadzielawa D., Kordys J., Rymarczyk K.; Linguistic and cognitive aspects of proverb
processing in aphasia. Aphasiology 14: 227-250 (2000)
5.
6. Grabowska A., Nowicka A., Szymanska O.,
7. Nowicka A., Fersten E.;
Sex-related differences in interhemispheric
transmission time in the human brain. NeuroReport 12:
4171-4175 (2001)
8. Pfeffer A., Styczynska M., Czyzewski K., Luczywek E., Golebiowski M., Nowicka A., Bracikowska M.; Apolipoprotein E
genotype and the rate of decline in Alzheimer’s disease: the gender
effect. Alzheimer’s Reports 4: 31-35 (2001)
9. Kowalczyk M., Nowicka A., Antkowiak B., Kocik J., Antkowiak O.; Psychosomatic reactions to a stressful
environment and an attempt at pharmacological modification. Med. Sci Monit 7: 953-961 (2001)
10. Luczywek E., Nowicka A., Pfeffer A., Czyzewski K., Styczynska M., Lalowski M., Bracikowska M.; Cognitive deficits and polymorphism of apolipoprotein E in Alzheimer’s disease. Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord
13: 171-177 (2002)
11. Herman-Jeglinska A., Grabowska A., Dulko S.; Masculinity, femininity and transsexualism.
Arch Sex Behav 31: 1-8 (2002)
12. Bednarek D., Grabowska A.;
Luminance and chromatic contrast sensitivity in dyslexia: The magnocellular deficit hypothesis revisited. NeuroReport 13 (18): 2521-2525 (2002)
13. Szatkowska I, Grabowska A, Szymańska O. Memory for object and object location
after lesion to ventro-medial prefrontal cortex in
humans. Acta Neurobiol. Exp., 2003, 63: 31-38