|
Alireza, Niayesh, Jane and Sara all presented posters in the recent Meeting of The Minds Conference, while Joshua and Keva shared talks on their research! Good job everyone and a special congratulations to Jane for winning second place in the Best Master's Student Poster Presentation! View photos on the Poster Presentation page.
0 Comments
Congratulations to Rylee Wevers and Sabrina Werner! Rylee Wevers and Sabrina Werner, undergraduate students in the Ekstrand Neuroimaging Lab, have been awarded an NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award (USRA) for summer 2025. We are excited to support their research and look forward to seeing how this opportunity will shape their scientific journeys! Check out posters on the Poster Presentations Page!
Congratulations to Joshua Craig!
Huge congratulations to Joshua Craig for receiving a NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarship for his Doctoral Studies! We are proud of your hard work and excited to see how you will thrive in your academic journey. Congratulations to Keva Klamer! A new article called "Differential fMRI neural synchrony associated with migraine during naturalistic stimuli with negative emotional valence" by Klamer et al., was published in The Journal of Headache and Pain. Congrats to all of the authors on their hard work!  Congratulations to Jane O'Connor, Alireza Taheritorbati, Niayesh Allahdad and Sara Asadi! Congratulations to all of you for placing in the top 10 finalists of the 3MT competition and special kudos to Sara Asadi for receiving the People's Choice Award!   Publication called “Trait-level somatic anxiety modulates functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) neural synchrony to naturalistic stimuli” by Klamer et al., 2024, published in Behavioral Neuroscience, was selected as the Featured Research Article in the Neuroscience Newsletter at the University of Lethbridge
 Congratulations to Sara Asadi!
Congratulations to Sara Asadi, a Master's student in the Ekstrand Lab, on being awarded the TrainBioData NSERC CREATE Scholarship. We are eager to see how this opportunity will shape your research journey!  Keva Klamer, PhD student was selected as the focus of the Grad Star Spotlight in the Neuroscience Newsletter at the University of Lethbridge!
 Publication called “Trait-level somatic anxiety modulates functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) neural synchrony to naturalistic stimuli” by Klamer et al., 2024, published in Behavioral Neuroscience, was selected by the American Psychological Association to be a featured publication in their Kudos Showcase.
Link: https://www.growkudos.com/publications/10.1037%25252Fbne0000615/reader Klamer et al., 2024, published in Behavioral Neuroscience: Somatic anxiety refers to the tendency to perceive situations as threatening, resulting in heightened physiological arousal. Symptoms often include an increased awareness of heartbeat, difficulty breathing, and palpitations, reflecting autonomic arousal and heightened threat perception. Somatic anxiety is often associated with increased stimulus-driven attention; however, its impact on neural synchrony during complex audiovisual experiences, measured through intersubject correlations (ISC), is not well understood. This study uses fMRI data from the Naturalistic Neuroimaging Database to investigate how different levels of somatic anxiety influence neural synchrony during audiovisual stimuli, using ISC and intersubject representational similarity analyses. It was hypothesized that individuals with higher somatic anxiety would show increased ISC in regions associated with stimulus-driven attention, such as the superior parietal lobule, supplementary motor area, and precentral gyrus. Findings revealed that higher levels of somatic anxiety were associated with widespread heightened ISC, particularly in areas related to perceptual processing and stimulus-driven attention, while lower levels were linked to neural synchrony in regions associated with higher-level visual processing. These results highlight the importance of measuring and controlling for somatic anxiety in naturalistic fMRI studies, as it significantly influences synchronous brain activity during complex stimuli processing.  Klamer et al., 2024, published in Neuropsychologia: Psychological well-being (PWB) encompasses self-acceptance, purpose in life, personal growth, positive relationships, and autonomy, and is closely linked to both physical and mental health. Previous research using resting-state fMRI and static images has pointed to brain regions such as the anterior cingulate cortex, posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), insula, and thalamus as being associated with PWB. However, findings across studies have been inconsistent, lacking in both strength and direction, leaving a clear model of PWB’s impact on brain function undefined. Naturalistic stimuli, such as audiovisual films offer a more realistic representation of everyday experiences and may evoke neural responses that are better suited to studying PWB. This study uses fMRI data from the Naturalistic Neuroimaging Database to investigate how varying levels of PWB influence neural synchrony in response to an audiovisual film. Results show that higher PWB levels are linked to increased neural synchrony in the bilateral OFC and left PCC, while lower PWB levels are associated with increased synchrony in the right temporoparietal junction and left superior parietal lobule, areas involved in narrative processing. Taken together, this research confirms the validity of several regions in association with PWB and suggests that varying levels of PWB produce differences in the processing of a narrative during complex audiovisual processing.  Image citation: Li, 2021
Congratulations to Sara Asadi and her teammates, a talented team of M.Sc. Neuroscience students from the University of Lethbridge, for their impressive second-place finish in the Standard Division at NatHACKS 2024! This neurotechnology hackathon, hosted annually by NeurAlbertaTech, brings together innovators from Alberta’s universities to tackle real-world challenges with cutting-edge solutions.
 Congratulations to Niayesh Allahdad!
Congratulations to Niayesh Allahdad, a Master's student in the Ekstrand Lab, on receiving the Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship. We look forward to the valuable contributions your research will bring!  Congratulations to Alireza Taheritorbati!
A big congratulations to Alireza Taheritorbati, a Master's student in the Ekstrand Lab, on receiving the Branch Out Neurological Foundation Graduate Grant. We look forward to following your research journey and seeing more of your work in the future! Research paper titled "Psychological well-being modulates neural synchrony during naturalistic fMRI" authored by Keva Klamer, Joshua Craig, Christina Haines, KiAnna Sullivan, and Chelsea Ekstrand was published in Neuropsychologia journal. Congratulations team!   Congratulations to Keva Klamer!
A big congratulations to Keva Klamer, PhD student in the Ekstrand Lab, for receiving the NSERC PGS-D scholarship. We are proud of her achievement!   In April, Chelsea, Keva and Josh travelled to Toronto, Canada to present their fMRI research at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society 2024 conference.
The Ekstrand Neuroimaging Lab takes OHBM 2023!Recently, the Ekstrand Neuroimaging lab had the opportunity to attend the renowned Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) conference in Montreal, QC. The conference promised to be an informative and enriching experience, offering us the chance to present our research, learn from leading experts, and engage in scientific discussions about the intricacies of brain mapping. We returned with new knowledge and inspiration to advance our research in the ever-evolving field of human brain mapping. Chelsea presented her new work focused on 4D spatiotemporal clustering as a new technique for analyzing functional magnetic resonance imaging data, while Keva, Josh, and KiAnna all sought to examine how personality traits such as psychological wellbeing, stress, and positive affect, modulate neural synchrony during audiovisual movie watching. Christina examined differences in neural synchrony across a complex narrative to identify regions of the brain involved in episodic memory formation at a larger timescale. We can't wait to be back!
Congratulations to Andres Jimenez! A huge congratulations to Andres for his acceptance into medical school at Western University! Wishing him all the best in his new endeavour!
Congratulations to Piper Shamanski!A big congratulations to previous Ekstrand Lab member, Piper Shamanski, for her acceptance to the Audiology and Speech-language Pathology programs at Dalhousie University! Piper's passion for language research ultimately led her to accept her dream offer to begin her Master's in Speech-language Pathology. Wishing you the best of luck, Piper!   Happy brain awareness week! Josh and Keva represented The Ekstrand Lab at the University of Lethbridge Open House. Visitors got to learn about the human brain and MRI and explore MRI images themselves.Big congrats to Ekstrand Lab Master's student, Keva Klamer, for receiving an Alberta Graduate Excellence Scholarship!
Congratulations to incoming graduate student KiAnna Sullivan for submitting the first manuscript of her Honours thesis work for publication! Fingers crossed for good news!
The Ekstrand Neuroimaging Lab is officially one year old! It has been an incredibly exciting and unique year to build a lab, but we are so happy with the awesome team we are building. Stay tuned from the awesome research we've been working on!
|
