Brain Products Young Scientist Award 2019 presented to PD Dr. Sebastian Ocklenburg

by Stefanie Rudrich
Team Leader of Marketing (Brain Products)

The annual meeting 2019 of the German Society for Basic and Applied Psychophysiology (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychophysiologie und ihre Anwendung, DGPA) took place in Dresden (Germany) from June 20 to 22. This popular conference, also known as PuG (Psychologie und Gehirn), has a long tradition in Germany.

Following a similarly long tradition, we presented our annual “Brain Products Young Scientist Award” at PuG 2019.

This award recognizes a young researcher for an outstanding publication in the field of EEG-based psychophysiology research as elected by an independent jury, which is appointed by the managing board of the DGPA.

This year’s winner was PD Dr. Sebastian Ocklenburg from Ruhr-University Bochum (Faculty of Psychology, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience).

Brain Products Young Scientist Award 2019 presented to PD Dr. Sebastian Ocklenburg

PD Dr. Sebastian Ocklenburg (left) receives the Brain Products Young Scientist Award 2019 from Jens Grunert, General Manager of or German partner, MES Forschungssysteme GmbH (right)

In his publication “Neurite architecture of the planum temporale predicts neurophysiological processing of auditory speech” (published in Science Advances; doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aar6830), he and his co-authors further investigated the assumption that the left hemispheric advantage in speech perception is reflected in faster neurophysiological processing.

For more details, please see the original abstract below or read the full publication:

Abstract

Neurite architecture of the planum temporale predicts neurophysiological processing of auditory speech
SEBASTIAN OCKLENBURG, PATRICK FRIEDRICH, CHRISTOPH FRAENZ, CAROLINE SCHLÜTER, CHRISTIAN BESTE, ONUR GÜNTÜRKÜN AND ERHAN GENÇ
SCIENCE ADVANCES, 11 Jul 2018, Vol 4, Issue 7, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aar6830

The left hemispheric advantage in speech perception is reflected in faster neurophysiological processing. On the basis of postmortem data, it has been suggested that asymmetries in the organization of the intrinsic microcircuitry of the posterior temporal lobe may produce this leftward timing advantage. However, whether this hypothetical structure-function relationship exists in vivo has never been empirically validated. To test this assumption, we used in vivo neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging to quantify microcircuitry in terms of axon and dendrite complexity of the left and right planum temporale in 98 individuals. We found that a higher density of dendrites and axons in the temporal speech area is associated with faster neurophysiological processing of auditory speech, as reflected by electroencephalography. Our results imply that a higher density and higher number of synaptic contacts in the left posterior temporal lobe increase temporal precision and decrease latency of neurophysiological processes in this brain region.

On behalf of the whole Brain Products team, congratulations, Sebastian, on winning this award. We will for sure continue to follow your research and wish you all the best for your future!

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