Jacek Matuszewski

• PhD in Biological Sciences
• PostDoc Position at Catholic University of Louvain

Learning to read assigns linguistic value to an abstract visual code. Whether regions of the reading network tune to visual properties common to most scripts or code for more abstracted units of language remains debated. Here, we investigate this question using visual Braille, a script developed for touch that does not share the typical explicit sh...

High-level perception results from interactions between hierarchical brain systems responsive to gradually increasing feature complexities. During reading, the initial evaluation of simple visual features in the early visual cortex (EVC) is followed by orthographic and lexical computations in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOTC). While simila...

Binocular disparity is used for perception and action in three dimensions. Neurons in the primary visual cortex respond to binocular disparity in random dot patterns, even when the contrast is inverted between eyes (false depth cue). In contrast, neurons in the ventral stream largely cease to respond to false depth cues. This study evaluated whethe...

Learning tactile Braille reading leverages cross-modal plasticity, emphasizing the brain’s ability to reallocate functions across sensory domains. This neuroplasticity engages motor and somatosensory areas and reaches language and cognitive centers like the visual word form area (VWFA), even in sighted subjects following training. No study has empl...

Binocular disparity is used for perception and action in three dimensions. Neurons in the primary visual cortex respond to binocular disparity in random dot patterns, even when the contrast is inverted between eyes (false depth cue). In contrast, neurons in the ventral stream largely cease to respond to false depth cues. This study evaluated whethe...

Early childhood experience alters visual development, a process exemplified by amblyopia, a common neurodevelopmental condition resulting in cortically reduced vision in one eye. Visual deficits in amblyopia may be a consequence of abnormal suppressive interactions in the primary visual cortex by inhibitory neurotransmitter γ-aminobutyric acid (GAB...

Learning to read assigns linguistic value to an abstract visual code. Whether regions of the reading network tune to visual properties common to most scripts or code for more abstracted units of language remains debated. Here we investigate this question using visual Braille, a script developed for touch that does not share the typical explicit sha...

he white matter (WM) architecture of the human brain changes in response to training, though fine-grained temporal characteristics of training-induced white matter plasticity remain unexplored. We investigated white matter microstructural changes using diffusion tensor imaging at 5 different time points in 26 sighted female adults during 8-months t...

A growing body of empirical evidence supports the notion of diverse neurobiological processes underlying learning-induced plasticity changes in the human brain. There are still open questions about how brain plasticity depends on cognitive task complexity, how it supports interactions between brain systems and with what temporal and spatial traject...

During foreign language acquisition neural representations of native language and foreign language assimilate. In the reading network, this assimilation leads to a shift from effortful processing to automated reading. Longitudinal studies can track this transition and reveal dynamics that might not become apparent in behavior. Here, we report resul...

There is strong evidence that neuronal bases for language processing are remarkably similar for sign and spoken languages. However, as meanings and linguistic structures of sign languages are coded in movement and space and decoded through vision, differences are also present, predominantly in occipitotemporal and parietal areas, such as superior p...

Keywords: Brain plasticity Longitudinal design Tactile Braille reading Intracortical myelin Multimodal MRI Quantitative MRI a b s t r a c t A growing body of empirical evidence supports the notion of diverse neurobiological processes underlying learning-induced plasticity changes in the human brain. There are still open questions about how brain pl...

The neural plasticity underlying language learning is a process rather than a single event. However, the dynamics of training-induced brain reorganization have rarely been examined, especially using a multimodal magnetic resonance imaging approach, which allows us to study the relationship between functional and structural changes. We focus on sign...

Perception via different sensory modalities was traditionally believed to be supported by largely separate brain systems. However, a growing number of studies demonstrate that the visual cortices of typical, sighted adults are involved in tactile and auditory perceptual processing. Here, we investigated the spatiotemporal dynamics of the visual cor...

Procrastination – an irrational delay of intended actions despite expecting to be worse off – is a complex and non-homogenous phenomenon. Previous studies have found a number of correlates of procrastination, some of which seem to be particularly important. Impulsivity is closely connected to procrastination on behavioral, genetic, and neuronal lev...

In the present simultaneous EEG/ECG-fMRI study we compared the temporal and spatial characteristics of the brain responses and the cardiac activity during fear picture processing between spider, blood-injection-injury (BII) and social fearful as well as healthy (non-fearful) volunteers. All participants were presented with two neutral and six fearr...

Emotionally charged pictorial materials are frequently used in phobia research, but no existing standardized picture database is dedicated to the study of different phobias. The present work describes the results of two independent studies through which we sought to develop and validate this type of database—a Set of Fear Inducing Pictures (SFIP)....