Latest news
BerTaLAB (Bergen-Tartu Language and Auditory Brain) project end seminar
Norwegian-Estonian Research Cooperation Programme Seminar on progress of the projects
The Norwegian-Estonian Research Cooperation Programme workshop for project members takes place on November 19th 2015 in Tartu (Dorpat Conference Center). Nele Põldver and Kristiina Kompus are representing the BerTa-LAB project team. Nele Põldver is going to give a presentation on the progress of the project.
BerTa-LAB at the Researchers' Night Festival 2015
BerTa-LAB project was present at this year's Researchers' Night festival (September 25th) at the Laboratory of Experimental Psychology in Tartu, introducing the dichotic listening paradigm and EEG measurement technique to all interested. The dichotic listening experimental paradigm helps to study the processing of speech as well as non-speech sounds and is fairly easy to use. Subjects just have to listen to sounds, for example syllables (/pa/ and /ta/) in two ears simultaneously and report what they hear. Asking the subjects to report what they heard has been used as a way of assessing for example the hemispheric differences of language processing that interest us in the BerTa-LAB project. Visitors of the Researchers' Night had a chance to participate in the demo-experiment and got instant feedback from our project's master students Liis Kask and Ats Kaivapalu. Master student Kertu Saar demonstrated how EEG is measured and explained the underlying processes to all interested.
BerTaLAB results presented at the MMN2015 conference in Leipzig!
Researchers working on the BerTaLAB project (Risto Näätänen, Kristiina Kompus, Nele Põldver and Kairi Kreegipuu, as well as master student Kertu Saar) will attend and present results at the conference "Error Signals from the Brain- 7th Mismatch Negativity Conference (MMN2015)" that is held at the University of Leipzig (Germany) from 8th to 11th of September 2015.
Risto Näätänen will take part in a symposium "Past, present, and future of the MMN", integrating also the phenomenon's clinical applications that are related to the theme of the Project. Project results are discussed during the poster presentation led by Kristiina Kompus: Kompus, K., Kreegipuu, K., Põldver, N., Westerhausen, R., Hugdahl, K., & Näätänen, R. "Resting-state glutamatergic neurotransmission is related to peak latency of auditory MMN for duration deviants".
Conference presentation on project results in Norway
BerTaLAB results were presented at the MedViz Conference about brain imaging and clinical medicine in Bergen, Norway, 15.-16. June 2015 as follows: Kristiina Kompus, René Westerhausen, Alexander R. Craven, Susanne Passow, Karsten Specht, Kenneth Hugdahl "Resting-state glutamatergic neurotransmission is mediating the latency of event-related electrophysiological responses from the brain".
What's new in the BerTaLAB project? Seminar on June 1st, 2015 in Tartu
In the seminar on June 6th (led by Nele Põldver) we will give an overview of and discuss the results obtained so far. We will also introduce the plans for the experiments in autumn 2015 to get feedback and comments from other researchers as well as attract students to join the project team.
The seminar will take place at 12 at Näituse 2-111 and is open for all who are interested!
Researcher's Night 2014
BerTa-LAB project was present at this year's Researchers' Night festival (September 26th), introducing the dichotic listening paradigm to all interested. This experimental paradigm helps to study the processing of speech as well as non-speech sounds and is fairly easy to use. Subjects just have to listen to sounds, for example syllables (/pa/ and /ta/) in two ears simultaneously and report what they hear. Asking the subjects to report what they heard has been used as a way of assessing for example the hemispheric differences of language processing that interest us in the BerTa-LAB project. Visitors of the Researchers' Night had a chance to participate in the demo-experiment and got instant feedback from our project's master student Ats Kaivapalu.
Two conference presentations of the project results in September!
Results from BerTaLAB sub-project on metabolic determinants of auditory change detection presented as a poster at the conference “5th International Conference on Auditory Cortex - Towards a Synthesis of Human and Animal Research“, Magdeburg, Germany, September 13-17. Authors: Kristiina Kompus, Kairi Kreegipuu, Nele Kuldkepp, René Westerhausen, Kenneth Hugdahl, Risto Näätänen; title: "Resting-state glutamatergic neurotransmission is related to the peak latency of auditory MMN for duration deviants".
BerTaLAB project results will also be presented at the NORMENT Center of Excellence Annual Retreat (September 16-17), Oslo, Norway.
First results presented at NORMENT!
First results from the BerTaLAB sub-projects on metabolic determinants of auditory change detection were presented at the NORMENT Center of Excellence Synergy meeting on brain imaging on May 23rd 2014 by Kristiina Kompus: “Brain correlates of AVH in clinical and non-clinical populations”.
Launching the project and presenting preliminary results at the University of Bergen
The BerTaLAB project was launched with two presentations in Bergen in March 2014. Kristiina Kompus presented the project and preliminary results from the sub-project on metabolic determinants of auditory change detection at the Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, Bergen on March 12th 2014 (“Metabolic determinants of auditory change detection”). On March 27th 2014 Kristiina Kompus presented the BerTaLAB project at the Bergen fMRI group weekly seminar at the Department of Radiology, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen ( “MMN and Glutamate: notes on acquisition and quantification of MRS data”).
Launching the project at the Institute of Psychology, Tartu
The BerTa-LAB project is the only project from the Faculty of Social Sciences and Education at the University of Tartu that received funding from the Norwegian Financial Mechanism. Therefore, the background, aims and expected outcomes of the project were presented to all interested at the Institute of Psychology on January 20th, 2014 by Nele Kuldkepp.
Norwegian-Estonian Research Cooperation Programme Workshop for Project Promoters
The Norwegian-Estonian Research Cooperation Programme workshop for project promoters took place on November 12th 2013 in Tallinn (Tallink City Hotel). Nele Kuldkepp, Kristiina Kompus and René Westerhausen represented the BerTa-LAB project team. Nele Kuldkepp gave a presentation to introduce the project.
Norwegian-Estonian Research Cooperation Programme call results
On Sept 3, 2013 Andres Koppel, Head of the Estonian Research Council signed the Directive of the Estonian Research Council to finance the projects under the Norwegian-Estonian Research Cooperation Programme. Alltogether 170 applications were submitted to the call and 13 projects got funded. See the list of funded projects on the Estonian Research Council homepage! The project "Language and auditory brain: studies on central sound representation in auditory cortex (BerTa-LAB)" received the highest score from the evaluators and will be funded in the amount of 121 868 € (forming 95% of the total budget of the project).