News

Four senior academics at the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging awarded promotions

20 July 2021

Steven Fleming, Dominik Bach and Vladimir Litvak have all been promoted to Professors, and Christian Lambert has been promoted to Principal Research Fellow.

Centre launches Understanding MRI, a new co-creation project to develop an animation with research participants

12 July 2021

Throughout the last year, members of the Physics, Imaging Support, qMAP-PD and PLORAS teams from across the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (WCHN) joined forces to deliver a multi-disciplinary public engagement project. Together with volunteers who participate in the Centre’s research, they co-created an animation to explain a core aspect of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Abnormalities in how the brain reorganises prior experiences identified in schizophrenia

1 July 2021

Neuroscientists from the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging have, for the first time, identified abnormalities in the way memories are ‘replayed’ in the brains of people with schizophrenia; researchers say the pathbreaking study provides an entirely new basis for explaining many of the condition’s core symptoms.

Scanning in 7-Tesla: Two years on

30 June 2021

In late Spring 2019, UCL’s Queen Square became the setting of an elaborate procedure to install an ultra high-field magnetic resonance imaging scanner to the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging. Now, just over two years later, the Centre’s first studies using the state-of-the-art scanner are beginning to reach completion.

Obsessive compulsive symptoms disproportionately affected by the pandemic, study finds

9 June 2021

Researchers from the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging and Max Planck Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research have found that obsessive-compulsive symptoms disproportionately increased during the first wave of the pandemic.

Dr Tim Tierney awarded Epilepsy Research UK & Young Epilepsy Fellowship for bedside brain imaging

1 June 2021

Dr Tim Tierney, a Research Fellow in the Centre’s MEG team has been awarded a prestigious Epilepsy Research UK and Young Epilepsy Fellowship to investigate how wearable brain scanning technology could be improved.

Misophonia: Supersensitive brain connection explains why some people hate the sound of others eating

27 May 2021

A new study has identified abnormal communication between areas of the brain that process sound, and those that represent movement of the face, mouth and throat as the cause of misophonia (a common disorder in which certain sounds such as chewing or breathing trigger a distressing emotional reaction) for the first time.

Is there a happiness equation? Here’s how we’re trying to find out

26 May 2021

Happiness is different for everyone in ways that scientists don’t yet understand, but smartphone app The Happiness Project is helping to build a better picture of what makes us happy, Robb Rutledge writes in The Conversation.

Decision-making ability in young people is independent of IQ

24 May 2021

Young people have a general decision-making ability, distinct from IQ, which is associated with good social function, and may be linked to poor mental health, finds a new study led by UCL and Karolinska Institutet researchers.

Replaying previous experiences in the brain helps us link past rewards to possible future decisions

21 May 2021

Cells in the brain replay previous events to help predict the outcome of possible future experiences, according to a recent study by researchers at the UCL – Max Planck Centre for Computational Psychiatry, and Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging.