We’ve got your signal!

Most people know that electroencephalography (EEG) measures brain activity. But probably few know that the first measurement of the human EEG came from an attempt to scientifically test telepathy, and even fewer that one of the first EEG devices from Groningen inspired the founding of a Dutch company. This blog post provides interesting historical insights into the measurement technique of EEG and it’s relation to Psychology in Groningen.

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The blessing and the curse of classifying neuroimaging data

Machine learning in cognitive neuroscience In modern cognitive neuroscience, it has become common-practice to apply machine learning techniques to data obtained through neuroimaging. Despite this widespread use, however, there is something amazingly enigmatic about it. On the one hand, there is this organ that for millennia has eluded scholars: billions of neurons connected in myriads […]

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A forgiving cycle path: preventing bicycle crashes in the elderly

Cyclists are vulnerable, and particularly older cyclists have an increased risk of crashing. Therefore, Frank Westerhuis and his colleagues from the traffic psychology group investigated countermeasures to increase cyclists’ safety. This blog post reveals whether they were succesful in achieving this by using illusionary objects next to the cycle path.

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Online misunderstandings can also result from excessive clarity

t is often assumed that online discussions escalate because people become less socially concerned when they are anonymous, or because online messages are unclear and easily misunderstood. In her PhD-dissertation, which she defended on September 22, Carla Roos reveals that the opposite is often the case: online communication is sometimes so clear that it can make people appear antisocial.

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An anatomical look inside brain ’P-0255’

Who hasn’t wanted to look inside someone’s head, especially when that person is acting strangely? A look into the brain can indeed be revealing, both from a medical and neuropsychological point of view, but also from an educational one. This is literally the case with ’P-0255’. But P-0255 is not an old personnel number as a colleague suspected, nor is it a neuroimaging scan; it is the number of a specimen from the University Museum’s pathological brain collection that shows a particular form of traumatic brain injury: a coup contre-coup.

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