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Research

The lab's focus is on how intrinsic, ongoing brain activity impacts subjects' behavior. Our research addresses three interrelated questions:

Ongoing activity in sensory regions: How does ongoing activity in sensory regions correlate with attention? Do the same processes occur for visual and auditory stimuli? We use EEG and fMRI methods to address this question

Comparisons across groups: How does ongoing brain activity shift as people age? Does this correlate with age-related declines in performance?

How does our ability to manipulate intrinsic, ongoing activity change with training?

We use methods of EEG, fMRI, and behavior to address these questions.

PUBLICATIONS

Vaden, R.J., Hutcheson, N.L., McCollum, L.A., Kentros, J.G., Visscher, K.M. (2012).  Older adults, unlike younger adults, do not modulate alpha power to suppress irrelevant information.  Neuroimage. 63: 1127-1133  PMID: 22885248 pdf

Nenert, R., Viswanathan, S., Dubuc, D.M., Visscher, K.M. (2012) Modulations of ongoing alpha oscillations predict successful short-term visual memory encoding. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 6:127 PMID: 22586390 pdf

Visscher, K.M., Weissman, D.H. (2011). Would the field of cognitive neuroscience be advanced by sharing functional MRI data? BMC Medicine 9(1):34. PMID: 21477286 pdf

Viswanathan, S., Perl, D., Visscher, K.M., Kahana, M.J., Sekuler, R. (2010). Homogeneity computation: How inter-item similarity in visual short term memory alters recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 17(1):59-65. pdf

Visscher, K.M., Kahana, M.J., Sekuler, R. (2009). Trial-to-trial carry-over in auditory short-term memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition 35(1):46-56. pdf

Visscher, K.M., Kaplan, E., Kahana, M.J., Sekuler, R. (2007). Auditory short-term memory behaves like visual short-term memory. PLoS Biology 5(3). pdf, news article.

Dosenbach, N.U.F., Visscher, K.M., Palmer, E.D., Miezin, F.M., Wenger, K.K., Kang, H.C., Burgund, E.D., Grimes, A.L., Schlaggar, B.L., Petersen, S.E. (2006). A core system for the implementation of task sets. Neuron, 50(5):799-812. pdf

Weissman, D.H., Roberts, K.C., Visscher, K.M., Woldorff, M.G. (2006). Zoning out: The neural bases of momentary lapses in attention. Nature Neuroscience, 9(7): 971-8. pdf

Wenger, K.K, Visscher, K.M., Miezin, F.M., Petersen, S.E., Schlaggar, B.L. (2004). Comparison of sustained and transient activity in children and adults using a mixed blocked/event-related fMRI design. NeuroImage, 22(2): 975-85. pdf

Visscher, K.M., Miezin, F. M., Kelly, J., Buckner, R.L., Donaldson, D.I., McAvoy, M., Bhalodia, V., Petersen, S. E. (2003). Mixed blocked/event-related designs can correctly separate transient and sustained activity in fMRI. NeuroImage, 19: 1694-708. pdf

Visscher, K.M., Viets, E., Snyder, L. (2003). Effects of training on memory-guided saccade performance. Vision Research, 43: 2061-71. pdf

Schlaggar, B. L., Brown, T.T., Lugar, H.M., Visscher, K.M., Miezin, F.M., Petersen, S.E. (2002). Functional neuroanatomical differences between adults and children in the processing of single words. Science 296, 1476-1479. pdf

SELECTED POSTERS

Visscher, K.M., Sekuler, R. (2008). Pre-stimulus neural activity predicts success in ignoring. Computational and Systems Neuroscience Conference Abstracts. pdf

Visscher, K.M., Sekuler, R. (2007). EEG correlates of intentional ignoring. Society for Neuroscience Abstracts. pdf

Visscher, K.M., Kahana, M.J., Sekuler, R. (2006). Short-term memory for spectrally and temporally complex sounds: Comparing apples to apples. Cognitive Neuroscience Society Abstracts. pdf