Dr Matt Roser

Qualifications

I studied for a Ph.D with Professor Michael Corballis at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. My Ph.D investigated interhemispheric interaction in callosotomised (split-brain) patients and people with agenesis of the corpus callosum.

In 2002 I moved to Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA, to work with Professor Michael Gazzaniga. While I was a Research Assistant Professor at Dartmouth I continued to test split-brain patients and broadened my research to incorporate functional MRI, electroencephalography, and diffusion-tensor imaging.

I moved to the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth in 2006.

More information about my research.

My office hours for Semester 2 are Monday and Tuesday 10-11am. Email me if you cannot make these times and wish to make an appointment.

Professional membership

Association for Psychological Science  (The American Psychological Society)

Cognitive Neuroscience Society

Teaching interests

Cognitive neuropsychology, biopsychology, cerebral asymmetry and interaction, perception, cognition and attention.

Research interests

Research in the Laterality Lab is aimed at establishing how perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes are integrated between the two cerebral hemispheres of the brain. This is undertaken using a variety of methods including studying patients in whom the hemispheres have been surgically separated (a callosotomy or split brain), functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and event-related potentials (ERP).

Recently my colleagues and I have concentrated on determining how, and where in the brain, the processes that allow us to make sense of a constantly changing physical world occur. Our research suggests that what we think of as quite high-level concepts such as causality and physical plausibility involve low-level perceptual and memory processes. Moreover, the two cerebral hemispheres make different contributions to this type of conceptual knowledge.

Current research:

To better understand change to interhemispheric interaction and cerebral laterality with age we are investigating the relationship between age-related change to brain microstructural connectivity, functional lateralization, and cognitive performance. The central aim of this research is to determine whether individual differences in age-related cognitive decline are reflected in functional reorganization in the brain, and whether these changes are mediated by the degree of structural preservation. This project will help us better understand why some people experience greater cognitive decline with age than do others.

Beginning in August 2012 we embarked on a three-year project funded by the ESRC (RES-062-23-3285, £302,000) to investigate the neuropsychology of reasoning. This major project integrates evidence from several complementary neuropsychological techniques. To extend our studies of how the two cerebral hemispheres contribute to higher cognition we are running a combined fMRI and DTI investigation of reasoning in people with autism or Asperger syndrome. The reasoning task involves integrating information to reach a conclusion. This process draws upon widely-distributed brain networks, the connectivity of which may be disturbed in autism. Converging evidence from several brain-imaging techniques can tell us how these networks differ in the normal and the autistic brain. We are using behavioural studies and brain imaging to investigate how age affects anatomical connectivity between the two cerebral hemispheres, and how this impacts upon behaviour. Finally, we are also using combined functional MRI and diffusion-tensor imaging to investigate interhemispheric interaction in motor responses to visual stimuli.

Research groups

• Brain Research & Imaging Centre (BRIC)

Grants & contracts

Alzheimer's Research UK- South West Development grant (£2,800). Normal ageing and the precursors of dementia investigated using brain imaging. ARUK-SW brain database.

£374,852 (ESRC): Dual processes in reasoning: A neuropsychological study of the role of working memory. (Matt Roser, Principal Investigator)

British Academy Research GrantsSG-47678. (£ 7,000)

The spatial-correspondence hypothesis – an ERP investigation.

Role: Primary Investigator.

National Institutes of Health Grant 2 R01 NS031443-10A2.

Neurologic & Cognitive Analysis of Callosotomy Patients.

Role: Investigator. (Primary Investigator: Gazzaniga, M.S.)

Additional information

Office hour

My office hours for Semester 1 are Monday 2-3pm and Wednesday 10-11am. Email me if you cannot make these times and wish to make an appointment.

Links

A website with further descriptions of my research and teaching and papers available for download.