We have been super busy!
New Publication – 27-11-2020
We published a new paper on impairing effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on memory performance. These results suggest that for complex task, tDCS is ineffective at improving learning speed and potentially detrimental to long-term retention when employed during encoding. This serves to highlight the complex nature of brain stimulation, providing a greater understanding of its limitations and drawbacks.
Pyke, W., Vostanis, A., & Javadi, A.-H. (2020). Electrical Brain Stimulation During a Retrieval-Based Learning Task Can Impair Long-Term Memory. Journal of Cognitive Enhancement. doi: 10.1007/s41465-020-00200-5
Reduction of Stroke Admissions – 26-11-2020
We published an article showing a reverse correlation between increased number of COVID-19 cases and stroke admissions, in particular between February 2020 and June 2020. This article is published in collaboration with Fern Rodgers, my fantastic research assistant at UCL. To read the full article please refer to this page.
New Publication – 20-10-2020
We published a Letter to Editors article on the effects of COVID-19 lockdown on severity, mortality, reoccurrence and rehabilitation of stroke. This paper is a collaboration between three university: University of Kent, University College London, and Tehran University of Medical Sciences.
Rodgers, F., Varley, R., Khatoonabadi, A. R., & Javadi, A.-H. (2020). Physical inactivity during lockdown and the implications for incidence of stroke, severity, mortality, reoccurrence and rehabilitation. Disability and Rehabilitation, 0(0), 1–2. doi: 10.1080/09638288.2020.1820588
Why working out your brain is just as important as your body – 18-09-2020
I commented on a news post published in the Metro by Vicki-Marie Cossar. In this piece I talked about importance of physical exercise and cognitive engagement in cognitive health. Importantly I talked about different mechanisms that contribute in this process. You can see the full post here (PDF, HTML).
BCEM Conference – 20-05-2020
Brain. Cognition. Emotion. Music (BCEM) Conference happened online with more than 600 attendees from across the world bcem.uk. In this conference we explored the effects of music on people and the human connection with music, bringing in research and expertise from a number of fields including psychology, musicology, and ethology. Despite original plans being interrupted by Covid-19, we moved the conference online with great success, seeing over 600 attendees.
New Publication – 15-01-2020
We published a new paper looking at effect of electrical brain stimulation on visual perception. We showed that stimulation of the occipital area modulates visual perception, but stimulation of the frontal area does not. The spatial and frequency specificity of our results have implications for research on the functional organization of perception
Somer, E., Allen, J., Brooks, J. L., Buttrill, V., & Javadi, A.-H. (2020). Theta Phase-dependent Modulation of Perception by Concurrent Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation and Periodic Visual Stimulation. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 32(6), 1142–1152. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_01539
Which of the three patterns on the bottom match the pattern on the top? We showed that electrical stimulation of the occipital area helps you make this judgement faster.
New Publication – 19-12-2019
We published a new paper looking at effect of physical exercise on memory. In this study we showed that moderate-intensity exercise can benefit memory significantly better than low- and high-intensity exercise. We ran this study across three years with one PhD, two MSc and two BSc students.
Pyke, W., Ifram, F., Coventry, L., Sung, Y., Champion, I., & Javadi, A.-H. (2020). The effects of different protocols of physical exercise and rest on long-term memory. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 167, 107128. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2019.107128
Christmas Party – 03-12-2019
We had a fantastic evening together beginning with Laser Tag and then dinner. Amelia managed to kill the most 😉 Who would have thought she can be so brutal 😉 All fought very well. The lab is proud of you 🙂
EEG Workshop – 09-09-2019
Amir-Homayoun presented a week-long workshop on EEG acquisition and analysis. This workshop was organised by the Social Marketing group at Griffith University, Australia. This intensive programme involved hands-on demonstrations, live testing, and programming problem-solving.
New Publication – 05-08-2019
We published a new paper in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences investigating backtracking during navigation. Our MEG study showed enhanced activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and suppressed Alpha oscillations and Default-Mode network.
Javadi, A.-H.*, Patai, E. Z.*, Marin-Garcia, E., Margois, A., Tan, H. M., Kumaran, D., … Spiers, H. J. (2019). Backtracking during navigation is correlated with enhanced anterior cingulate activity and suppression of alpha oscillations and the ‘default-mode’ network. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 286(1908), 20191016. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2019.1016
This is not Goodbye – 19-07-2019
Our ten BSc students graduated in the Canterbury Cathedral. It was a fantastic year working together. They worked super hard and we dealt with many challenges. We wish them all the very best. Without any particular order Sarah Burke, Sarah Butt, Nicholas Roy, Miran Amin, Sunasu Turk, Isabella Sewell, Harriet Caesley, Yoann Chantrel, Lydia Orton, and Valeria Trabattoni.
Podcast – Uncommon Conversations – 13-06-2019
Amir-Homayoun joined Uncommon Conversations podcast by Maryam Zar and John Harlow on June 13, 2019 and talked about effects of application of GPS in everyday life on brain structure and function. You can listen to his section in this link from minute 16:45.
News Article – 05-06-2019
“Ditch the GPS. It’s ruining your brain.” A nice Opinion article by Maura O’Connor in The Washington Post citing our 2017 Nature Communication publication (doi) from Hugo Spiers lab. There, Maura argues that relying too much on GPS would be potentially harmful. See also in The Daily Courier, and link 1, and link 2.
New Publication – 07-06-2019
This review discusses three main factors that contribute to memory enhancement – 1) emotion, 2) targeted memory reactivation, and 3) neural reinstatement. Here we suggest methodological factors to consider in future studies, and discuss several unanswered questions that should be pursued in order to clarify selective memory enhancement.
Crowley, R., Bendor, D., & Javadi, A.-H. (in press) A review of neurobiological factors underlying the selective enhancement of memory at encoding, consolidation, and retrieval. Progress in Neurobiology. doi: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2019.04.004
Collaboration with NHS – 28-05-2019
We organised a Research Day with our colleagues at Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust (KMPT) as well as Canterbury Christ Church (CCC). It was a day full of discussions and events with more than 100 attendees.
This Kent Research Day aimed to improve research in our region for everyone involved – service users, KMPT staff and academics. The morning talks brought together speakers from organisations around Kent to address (1) how to do research on a practical level, and (2) how we can work together to get research ideas past the thinking stage and produce Kent home-grown research. The afternoon collaboration workshops was a chance to break off into topics of interest, to develop research ideas and form ‘research networks’ for the future.
New Publication – 02-04-2019
In a study we investigated brain activity during navigation in well-known and familiar environments. Posterior hippocampal activity tracked the distance to the goal in the newly learned campus, as well as in familiar environments when the future route contained many turns. By contrast retrosplenial cortex only tracked the distance to the goal in the familiar campus.
Patai, E. Z., Javadi, A-H., Ozubko, J. D., Callaghan, A. O., Ji, S., Robin, J., … Spiers, H. J. (2019). Hippocampal and Retrosplenial Goal Distance Coding After Long-term Consolidation of a Real-World Environment. Cerebral Cortex, 1–11. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhz044 (supplementary XLS, supplementary PDF)
Quiz and Pizza – 05-02-2019
We had our third social of the academic year with a Quiz and Pizza. Thanks to Ellie Tozer for preparing the quiz. Well done to Yoann Chantrel and Nick Roy for winning the first prize and Harriet Caesley and Sunasu Turk for winning the second prize 🙂
New Publication – 05-01-2019
Our recent Letter to Editor publication is out. In this letter we report two instances of adverse effect to transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).
Kortteenniemi, A., Lehto, S. M., & Javadi, A.-H. (2019). Delayed, distant skin lesions after transcranial direct current stimulation. Brain Stimulation, 12(1), 204–206. doi: 10.1016/j.brs.2018.10.018
Escape Room – 04-12-2018
We had our Christmas party — games and dinner 🙂 It was fun. We had two Escape Rooms and we played against each other. It was a very tight competition. The winning group consisted of (from left to right) Sue, Amelia, Sarah, Ellie, Wesley, Sarah, Valeria and of course Amir-Homayoun 😉 Special thanks to Ellie Tozer for organising the whole event. She is awesome 🙂
This is not goodbye – 23-11-2018
My MSc students graduated, Fern, Becky, Hannah and Necati… Becky (x2) and Hannah (x1) won three of the graduate prizes. I am super happy and totally satisfied. I am extremely fortunate to have such fantastic students around me: Becky and Hannah (they were inseparable) I remember all the late evenings and weekends that we spent together collecting data; Fern I remember all the countless hours we spent in trains going to hospitals all around Kent; Necati I remember all the hard work we put to pull off your challenging project. Thanks everyone for all these lovely memories. I would like to also thank Amelia (MRes at the time, PhD now), Brad and other members of my lab who collectively made impossibles possible. You guys are all star 🙂
Sleep and Parasomnia; Panel Discussion – 30/10/2018
Amir-Homayoun took part in a panel discussion on sleepwalking, sleep-talking and Parasomnia following the theatre act, Elephant and Castle at Gulbenkian Theatre. Elephant and Castle is a theatre show about the joy and terror of sharing your bed with a sleep-talker, presented by Tom Adams and Lillian Henley tom-adams.co.uk.
Conference presentation – 7/09/2018
PhD students of our lab presented three fantastic papers at British Association for Cognitive Neuroscience conference (BACN Conference 2018), University of Glasgow. From left to right:
- Fadi Ifram: enhancing long-term memory using physical exercise and brain stimulation
- Matthew Plummer: ERP markers of retrieval-induced updating of face memories
- Louisa Salhi: Electrical brain activity associated with false memory-related increases to subsequent recognition
This is not goodbye – 16/07/2018
Our final year undergraduate students graduated in the Canterbury Cathedral. We spent a fantastic year together; full of fun and with many challenges. We wish all the very best for these graduates. Without any particular order, Susan Absolon, Laura Carlin, Rakel Svendsen, Elif Somer, Vaughan Buttrill, Julie Mason, Angela Machado, Elizabeth Smith, and Neriman Altiparmak.
Promotion – 01/07/2018
I am promoted to Senior Lecturer (something between assistant- and associate-professor). I would like to thank all my fantastic students who helped me in the last few years. They did all the heavy lifting and I only steered the ship. Thanks also to many individuals who helped me with my chaotic work. In particular I would love to thank Hugo Spiers, Vincent Walsh, Penny Lewis, Leun Otten, Niko Busch, and Michael Smolka, as well as my fantastic colleagues in the School of Psychology at University of Kent.
Interview by BBC Radio Kent – 06/06/2018
BBC Radio Kent interviewed with Amir-Homayoun on a study published by Ghetti and colleagues. Prabhakar et al looked at brain activity of 2 years old toddlers while sleeping in an fMRI machine to investigate memory reinstatement in response to listening to a familiar music.
Prabhakar, J., Johnson, E. G., Nordahl, C. W., & Ghetti, S. (2018). Memory-related hippocampal activation in the sleeping toddler. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 201805572. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1805572115
Pint of Science and Community Talks – 14/05/2018
- In one week we had three talks for public:
Amelia Turrell on effect of music on depression entitled “Mending the Mind with Music” at Pint of Science Festival in Tonbridge. - Fern Rodgers on application of electrical brain stimulation on stroke entitled “This conversation is electric: Comprehension of speech and language” at Pint of Science Festival in Rochester.
- Amir-Homayoun on effects of brain stimulation and physical exercise on cognition entitled Cognitive Enhancement using Brain Stimulation and Physical Exercise at Community Talks in Herne Bay.
Amelia and Fern present at Pint of Science Festival – 07/04/2018
Amelia Turrell and Fern Rodgers, two active members of Javadi Lab, are going to present at Pint of Science Festival 14-16 May 2018. The title of Amelia’s talk is “Mending the Mind with Music” on May 14th and the title of Fern’s talk is “This conversation is electric: Comprehension of speech and language” on May 15th. We are very proud for having them present at this fantastic festival.
New Publication – 01/04/2018
We published a review paper on physiological understanding of exercise-induced cognitive benefits. In this paper we propose a new model for the effects of physical activity on cognition. We assess possible causal pathway for cognitive benefits induced by aerobic exercise and propose two mechanisms of short- and long-term effects.
Stimpson, N. J., Davison, G., & Javadi, A.-H. (2018). Joggin’ the Noggin: Towards a Physiological Understanding of Exercise-Induced Cognitive Benefits. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 88(March), 177–186. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2018.03.018
Amelia has accepted a PhD offer – 01/03/2018
Amelia Turrell has been an invaluable member of Javadi Lab since mid-2016. She began her studies with us on effects of dance music on emotions. She did a fantastic job during her BSc and won Janet Miele Prize for her dissertation. She is now doing an outstanding job during her MSc. Following all her achievements, she has been offered a Graduate Teaching Assistantship (GTA) to do her PhD in our lab. We congratulate her for this achievement and look forward to even more wonderful achievements.
Our Sleep Lab is Up and Running – 01/02/2018
We are almost done with the setup of our little Sleep Lab. We ran our first pilot and it went well. Our special thank goes to Adam, Frank, John, Gary and Natalia who have helped us massively in this process. Thanks to Hanna to be our very first participant. Becky is the first person using the lab. Of course we cannot neglect how important Theo (that lovely fluffy brown creature) is in our sessions 😉 Good luck to us all 🙂
Neuromarketings in Exercise Sciences – 02/01/2018
Amir-Homayoun along with Drs Alireza Elahi and Rasoul Yaali held a workshop on neuroeconomics in exercise sciences in the School of Exercise sciences at Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran. The workshop consisted of four sessions discussing on different aspects of (1) neuroscience methods, in particular EEG, in exercise sciences, (2) neuromarketing in exercise sciences and (3) EEG practicals.
Neurocognitive Mechanism and Enhancement of Memory and Language – 23/12/2017
Amir-Homayoun along with Dr Ahmad Khatoonabadi hold a seminar on anatomy, function and dysfunction as well as enhancing effects of transcranial electrical brain stimulation on memory and language. This seminar happened at the School of Rehabilitation, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). Amir-Homayoun is a visiting professor at TUMS. You can download Amir-Homayoun’s presentations from this link.
Poker Night – 28/11/2017
Our second social was full chips and cards 🙂 We had a lovely night playing poker. Thanks to Lizzy, Julie and Angela for organising it. Our special thanks goes to Connor who taught us the rules and chaired one of the tables. The winner of the night was Hannah 🙂
New Publication – 11/10/2017
In collaboration with Dr Hugo Spiers we published a paper on importance of congruency of brain stimulation at encoding and retrieval of long-term memory. Our results are consistent with the proposal that reinstatement of neural oscillations during retrieval supports successful memory retrieval. In particular thanks to James-Calum Glen for his hard work in different phases of the study.
Javadi, A.-H., Glen, J. C., Halkiopoulos, S., Schulz, M., & Spiers, H. J. (2017). Oscillatory Reinstatement Enhances Declarative Memory. The Journal of Neuroscience, 37(41), 265–17. doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0265-17.2017
Our first group meeting – 05/10/2017
We had our first group meeting of the new academic year of 2017-18. It began with a presentation by me bragging about our achievements in the past year 😉 Then we played a game that was designed by me. The game turned out to be very cheesy 🙂 Students were very kind not to mentioning it in my face. Perhaps I should stop designing games. But I was very proud of myself with my creativity 🙂
New Publication – 25/09/2017
Vahid Nejati, Mohammad Ali Salehinejad and Asal Najian in collaboration with Michael A. Nitsche and me, published an interesting paper on effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on ADHD. This is my first publication with an Iranian team. Very glad to be part of this research.
Nejati, V., Salehinejad, M.A., Nitsche, M.A., Najian, A., & Javadi, A.-H., (in press) Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Improves Executive Dysfunctions in ADHD: Implications for Inhibitory Control, Interference Control, Working Memory, and Cognitive Flexibility. Journal of Attention Disorders. doi:10.1177/1087054717730611
Amelia won Janet Miele Prize – 24/06/2017
Amelia has been awarded the Janet Miele Prize for achieving the 2nd highest mark for her final year project amongst all final year students. This is a great achievement. We congratulate her and wish her an even more successful future ahead. Amelia will continue as a MSc student in our lab, and we are super happy for having her for at least another year.
New Publication – 20/06/2017
In a study we investigated subjective perception of travel time and distance in an environment in which certain locations in the world can only be reached by circumnavigating obstacles. Our results showed all travel times are underestimated and all distances are overestimated. Moreover, when circumnavigation is required, travel times are further compressed and distances are further expanded.
Brunec, I. K., Javadi, A.-H., Zisch, F. E. L., & Spiers, H. J. (2017). Contracted time and expanded space: The impact of circumnavigation on judgements of space and time. Cognition, 166, 425–432. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.06.004
New Publication – 01/06/2017
My former student (Julian Mutz) and I published a review paper looking at altered states of consciousness during sleep & lucid dreaming and its neural correlates.
Mutz, J., & Javadi, A.-H. (2017). Exploring the neural correlates of dream phenomenology and altered states of consciousness during sleep. Neuroscience of Consciousness, 3(1). http://doi.org/10.1093/nc/nix009
Lecture at U3A Showcase Event – 01/06/2017
Amir-Homayoun gave a presentation at University of 3rd Age (U3A) showcase event, in collaboration with University of Kent. His talk was entitled “exercise your heart – boost your brain”. In this talk he emphasised on the importance of keeping active and learning new things.
Talk at Think Kent – 19/05/2017
Amir-Homayoun gave a talk at Think Kent on “Long-Term Memory: Modulating Consolidation”. In this 18 minutes presentation, he talked about what memory consolidation is, and how it can be modulated. He mentions sleep, brain stimulation, music and physical exercise as effective methods of consolidation that can be used for cognitive enhancement.
This is not goodbye – 15/05/2017
My BSc students successfully submitted their final year project dissertations. They did a GREAT job during the last year and they were all fabulous people to with with. Thank you all for being part of Javadi Lab and bringing energy and happiness to the lab. Without any order, Asma, Ivy, Daniel, Amelia, Laura, Noella and Marcus.
interview by BBC Radio – 26/03/2017
Vanessa Feltz from BBC Radio London interviewed with Amir-Homayoun for their recent publication on contribution of prefrontal cortex and hippocampus on future planning and navigation.
Javadi, A.-H.*, Emo, B.*, Howard, L. R., Zisch, F. E., Yu, Y., Knight, R., … Spiers, H. J. (2017). Hippocampal and prefrontal processing of network topology to simulate the future. Nature Communications, 8, 14652. http://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14652 (supplementary, video abstract)
New Publication – 21/03/2017
In collaboration with Dr Hugo Spiers (University College London, London, UK) and some other brilliant researchers in particular Dr Beatrix Emo (ETH Zürich), we published our paper in Nature Communications. In this paper we showed how hippocampus and prefrontal cortex (PFC) contribute in navigation and future planning, respectively.
Javadi, A.-H.*, Emo, B.*, Howard, L. R., Zisch, F. E., Yu, Y., Knight, R., … Spiers, H. J. (2017). Hippocampal and prefrontal processing of network topology to simulate the future. Nature Communications, 8, 14652. http://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14652 (supplementary, video abstract)
A Week at Headway – 10/03/2017
In the past week, we had multiple visits to Headway, Canterbury to present our work to the Headway team and their lovely clients. Many of the clients were very excited about our work. We are looking forward to beginning our next round of data collection with their help. This part of our research is extremely exciting with real and practical implications, which hopefully can improve many people’s quality of life. Many thanks to Anthony Dickerson, Diane Gate-Ide and Sue Goonery for supporting us.
Aphasia After Stroke – 07/03/2017
We finished testing our first group of individuals with language difficulty as a result of stroke. It was a great experience and we thank our participants, their families and everybody who helped us with this research, especially Dr David Wilkinson, Emma Denby, and Professor Rosemary Varley (University College London).
Pancake Night – 27/02/2017
As you might know, last day of February was Pancake Day (Shrove Tuesday). With that excuse we had a pancake night on Monday (as Tuesday was Fern’s birthday). That night I learned that some people put sugar in their pancake dough. We had a lot of pancake flips, even from one pan to another – thanks Jed for being our pancake hero. Of course we had a lot of unsuccessful flips as well, but they did not prevent us from trying again 🙂 The whole team believes in “try again – try harder”. Photo taken by Charlotte.
Synaptic Plasticity – 17/02/2017
I wrote a piece for The Question (link). This piece looks at a few different ways that neural plasticity works and its role in many functions of the brain. Thanks to Stephen Turnbull (@memneon) for his invitation, editing the document and preparing the illustration.
EEG Analysis Workshop – 22/02/2017
We had our EEG analysis workshop. The idea was sparked by a couple of my students, then four students showed interest, but then we ended up with more than 15 attendees including two members of staff, PhD, MSc and BSc students. It was super nice to have such a diverse group of people from many different fields of research. Contact us if you would like to have the handout and the workshop material. Thanks to Leun Otten (Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London) for sharing her handouts with us. Thanks to Adam Britcher for technical support.
javadilab.com Went Live – 06/02/2017
Our wonderful website went live. Many thanks to my hard-working PhD student Fadi Ifram who put together the whole website. That day and a few following days we received more than 1000 views.
Christmas Dinner – 12/12/2016
We had our delicious Christmas dinner at Azouma. All the students gave a 2 minute presentation on their project and others gave feedback and scored the presentations. Everybody did very very well. Some even prepared notes for their presentation – I am not going to say that it was Fern 😉 Laura won the competition. Congratulations Laura! Fadi is behind the camera.
* Phoenix by my wonderful uncle Hamid Javadi
