Research

Doctoral Dissertations

Guy Vingerhoets, PhD in the Psychological Sciences
“Cognitive Consequences of Cardiac Surgery with Extra-Corporeal Circulation: a Prospective Neuropsychological Study”. Promotors : Prof. Dr. G. De Soete, Department of Data-analysis, Faculty of Psychology and Pedagogical Sciences, en Prof. Dr. C. Jannes, Department of Psychiatry and Neuropsychology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. 1995. University Ghent.

Nathalie Stroobant, PhD in Medicine and Health Sciences
“Changes in Cerebrovascular Reactivity during Cognitive Activation after Cardiopulmonary Bypass: Relation with Intra-Operative Cerebral Embolic Load and Postoperative Neuropsychological Dysfunction”. Promotors: Prof. Dr. G. Vingerhoets, Department of Internal Medicine, en Prof. Dr. G. Van Nooten, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. 2004. University Ghent.

Ruth Seurinck, PhD in Medicine and Health Sciences
“Differential activation of the human brain during mental rotation paradigms, an fMRI study”. Promotors: Prof. Dr. G. Vingerhoets, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, en Prof. Dr. E. Achten, Department of Radiology. 2007. University Ghent.

Marijke Miatton, PhD in Medicine and Health Sciences
“Neuropsychological Functioning in Children with a Surgically Corrected Congenital Heart Disease”. Promotors: Prof. Dr. G. Vingerhoets, Department of Internal Medicine, Prof. Dr. D. De Wolf, Pediatric Cardiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. 2007. University Ghent.

Nele Warlop, PhD in Medicine and Health Sciences
“Improving the relation between easures of cognitive dysfunction and stractural brain lesion in Multiple Sclerosis: Alternative neurospychological and MR imaging procedures.” Promotor: Prof. Dr. G. Vingerhoets, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. 2008. University Ghent.

In Preparation

Celine Berckmoes, Master in Logopaedics and Audiological Sciences, is preparing a PhD in the Medicine and Health Sciences. “The Cerebral Organization of Prosody”. Promotors: Prof. Dr. G. Vingerhoets, Department of Internal Medicine, en Prof. Dr. E. Achten, Department of Radiology, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Katrien Vanommeslaeghe, Master in Logopaedics and Audiological Sciences, is preparing a PhD in the Medicine and Health Sciences. “Cerebral (re)organization after acquired aphasia” Promotor: Prof. Dr. G. Vingerhoets, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Frederick De Vogelaere, Master in the Psychological Sciences, is preparing a PhD in the Medicine and Health Sciences. “The contribution of functional magnetic resonance imaging in the early diagnosis of Alzheimers disease.” Promotor: Prof. Dr. G. Vingerhoets, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Jehanne Van Boxstael, Master in Logopaedics and Audiological Sciences, is preparing a PhD in the Medicine and Health Sciences. “Language and imagery: neural correlates of time and place representations during sentence and text comprehension.” Promotor: Prof. Dr. G. Vingerhoets, Department of Internal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.

Stimulus Material for Cognitive Paradigms

Dichotic listening (in Dutch)

Mental rotation

Stimuli composed of pairs of pictures of three dimensional asymmetric objects, scaled to the same proportions and grey scaled in order to obtain the same visual load for all types of stimuli. There are three different types of stimuli: hands, tools and compound cube figures. Each stimulus type has four different objects (e.g. hands in different positions like the victory symbol, all five fingers raised, etc.). The tools used were a pencil sharpener, a soup ladle, a can opener and a monkey wrench. The objects can be displayed in four different orientations (0°, 90°, 180° and 270°) and also as a mirror image. The stimuli consist of pairs of similar pictures (e.g. two pencil sharpeners) that are either the same or mirror images of each other. The angular disparity between the two objects differs: 0°, 90°, 120°, 150°, 180°, 210°, 240° and 270°.

Emotional prosody (in Dutch)

Face recognition

Different databases are available consisting of coloured pictures of male and female unfamiliar faces. One smaller database consists of faces with digitally removed hair, this way only facial features can be judged. Another, very extensive database allows possibilities to present faces from different angles. Some of the stimuli were used before in a face-name association task.

Functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasonography

We have a 2-MHz ‘pulsed wave’ transcranial Doppler Device in our Laboratory. (Multidop X2 hardware, DWL version 2.53j from TCD 7 software, DWL electronic system Gmbh, Germany).
This device measures bilaterally the hemodynamic characteristics of the major cerebral arteries. The apparatus can be used to visualise and analyse the blood flow velocity (BFV) change caused by different cognitive task demands and to inventarise the embolic load for example during coronary artery bypass graft surgery.
Advantages: it is non-invasive and can be repeated several times. It is not expensive and can be used by patients that are not likely to be assessed with any other neurophysiological imaging tools. Temporal resolution is high.
Lateralised differences and day-to-day variations are reliable and reproducible within one examinator.
Disadvantages: the spatial resolution is determined by the size of the cortical areas supplied by the artery under study.

For a review according to methodological issues in activation studies regarding subject selection, group size, presentation and response mode, procedural aspects, and choice of baseline measurement we refer to Stroobant & Vingerhoets, 1999, “Transcranial Doppler Monitoring of Cerebral Hemodynamics during performance of cognitive tasks: a review”, Neuropsychology Review, 10:213-231.