Host: School of Psychological Sciences
Speakers: Professor Sonja Kotz, School of Psychological Sciences and Dr Ming Wai Wan, Institute of Brain, Behaviour and Mental Health
Registration: Eventbrite: - http://mhsfacultyresearchseries15may.eventbrite.co.uk/#
(1) Title: “Timing impairment(s) and neural dysfunction(s) in basal ganglia and cerebellar disorders”
Senior researcher: Professor Sonja Kotz, School of Psychological Sciences
Sonja A Kotz is a cognitive and affective neuroscientist, who investigates speech, language, and communication. More specifically, her research centers on predictive coding and cognitive/affective control with respect to verbal and non-verbal components in speech, language, and communication as well as their integration in healthy and clinical (aphasic, neurodegenerative) populations using behavioural and neuroimaging methods ( event-related brain potentials (ERPs), M/EEG-oscillations, magnetoencephalography ( MEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)). She is a Research Professor and holds an independent research group leadership in the Department of Neuropsychology at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig, Germany as well as an Honorary Professorship in Psychology at the University of Leipzig, Germany. Most recently she has been appointed Chair in Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience at the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Manchester.
(2) Title: "Does quality of early parent-infant interaction predict autism outcome in at-risk infants?"
Junior Researcher: Dr Ming Wai Wan, Institute of Brain, Behaviour and Mental Health
Ming Wai is a Lecturer in Developmental Psychology whose research focuses on parent-child interaction and relationships, and their impact in specific psychosocial contexts. Ming Wai has led the study of parent-infant interaction in the largest prospective study of infant siblings at risk of autism spectrum disorder (BASIS; British Autism Study of Infant Siblings), and is involved in evaluating the first sensitivity-based intervention of its kind for at-risk infants. This presentation will be based on observational work at 6-9 months and 12-15 months in relation to 3-year diagnostic status of autism. Ming Wai initially joined the Centre for Women’s Mental Health as a research fellow, focusing on children of parents with mental disorder. Complementing this strand of research in parental severe mental illness, she also studies parent behaviour and cognition, parent-child interaction, particularly in infancy, and child attachment relationships and other developmental outcomes, in the wider population and cross-culturally. Ming Wai is trained in observational measures of mother-infant interaction, and developed a modified global assessment of such interaction (Manchester Assessment of Caregiver-Infant Interaction; MACI) within the BASIS project. Ming is the Postgraduate Trainer for IBBMH, a chartered psychologist and Chair of the British Psychological Society – North West Branch.
About the Faculty Research Series:
- These are monthly events that are open to all staff and students from across the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences and the University, offering an opportunity to celebrate research achievement and stimulate scientific interaction. Each month, one host School or Institute from the Faculty will pair with a different School or Institute to highlight and showcase similar topics from different perspectives.
- The 2013 series is being led by Professor David Eisner and administered from the Faculty Research Office.
- Held on Wednesday lunchtimes, each meeting lasts an hour, including two 20-25 minute presentations – one from a junior and one from a more senior member of Faculty staff.
- Each presentation will be followed by a short discussion.
- A buffet lunch will be available from 12.30 pm.
- Presentations begin: 1.00 pm.
