Dumoulin group

General description research

The research of the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuroimaging group is centered on the intersection of human perception, cognition and neuroscience. The group is headed by Prof. Serge Dumoulin. In addition to our own research, we run the Spinoza Centre for Neuroimaging.

Our ultimate goal is to understand how neural computations result in visual perception and cognition. Vision is the dominant sense in humans. However, we study the visual system not just for the sake of understanding vision itself, but also as a model for how the rest of the brain functions.

In recent years, we extended the knowledge of the visual system to cognitive domains, such as attention and numerical cognition. Besides fundamental neuroscience and cognition questions, we apply the knowledge to a variety of clinical manifestations including psychiatry, with a specific interest in the plasticity and stability of the human brain.

Psychiatric symptoms (or disorders) the group is interested in 

At the Spinoza Centre, researchers from the AUMC use MRI to study a wide range of psychiatric disorders from functional, structural and metabolic perspectives, often in collaboration with the CCNN group. For example, visual perception is modified in psychiatry in a number of diseases and modeling of these changes can help understand both the underlying computations and the sensory effects on the patients. Projects that bridge computational neuroscience and psychiatry would follow on naturally from our existing research lines.

Neuroimaging can be relevant in a wide range of psychiatric disorders and symptoms, including e.g. Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Autism Spectrum Disease (ASD), and Parkinson’s Disease (PD), all targets of ongoing projects in the CCNN group. For example, we participate in an NWA consortium focusing on sex differences in autistic trait occurrence. Electrode placement for DBS in MDD is also supported through presurgical 7T-MRI.

Technical approaches

We use a variety of neuroimaging techniques, in particular fMRI at ultra-high field strengths (7T), as well as computational and behavioural approaches. The Spinoza Centre houses an ultra-high field whole-body 7T MRI scanner. 7T is rapidly establishing itself as a tool for studying the brain in unprecedented detail. The 7T is equipped with stimulus presentation hardware (visual, auditory and other) and behavioural recording similar to the 3T. The scanner also has an eight-channel multi-transmit system for obtaining homogenous signal across the entire brain, including the cerebellum.

In addition, we develop new data-analysis methods that capture perceptual and cognitive representations in the living human brain, for example the pRF method. These methods are unique because of their biologically-inspired perspective, allowing them to merge computational neuroscience with neuroimaging. In our research, we blend behavior (psychophysics), computational models, and 7T neuroimaging.

Keywords: MRI, pRF, computational neuroscience, 7T, ultra-high field, vision, ASD, MDD.

List of  the matching research domains and/or disorders
Cognitive systems – Attention + Perception (visual+auditory+somatosensory) + language (numerical cognition)
Social processes – Perception and understanding of others (Action perception/Understanding mental states) 
Motor actions – sensorimotor dynamics, action planning and selection