Méadhbh Brosnan

University College Dublin | UCD · School of Psychology

Cognitive reserve (CR) is the phenomenon where older adults with more cognitively stimulating environments show less age-related cognitive decline. The right-lateralized fronto-parietal network has been proposed to significantly contribute to CR and visual attention in ageing. In this study we tested whether plasticity of this network may be harnes...

Objective: Real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI) neurofeedback (NF) uses feedback of the patient's own brain activity to self-regulate brain networks which in turn could lead to a change in behavior and clinical symptoms. The objective was to determine the effect of NF and motor training (MOT) alone on motor and non-motor funct...

The self-regulation of brain activation via neurofeedback training offers a method to study the relationship between brain areas and perception in a more direct manner than the conventional mapping of brain responses to different types of stimuli. The current proof-of-concept study aimed to demonstrate that healthy volunteers can self-regulate acti...

Novelty exposure and the upregulation of the noradrenergic (NA) system have been suggested as crucial for developing cognitive reserve and resilience against neurodegeneration. Openness to experience (OE), a personality trait associated with interest in novel experiences, may play a key role in facilitating this process. High-OE individuals tend to...

Non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) is a complex and multifaceted approach to modulating brain activity and holds the potential for broad accessibility. This work discusses the mechanisms of the four distinct approaches to modulating brain activity non-invasively: electrical currents, magnetic fields, light, and ultrasound. We examine the dual st...

Slowed responding to sensory inputs presented in contralesional space is pervasive following unilateral cerebral stroke, but the causal neurophysiological pathway by which this occurs remains unclear. To this end, here we leverage a perceptual decision-making framework to disambiguate information processing stages between sensation and action in 30...

Novelty exposure and the upregulation of the noradrenergic (NA) system have been suggested as crucial for developing cognitive reserve and resilience against neurodegeneration. Openness to Experience (OE), a personality trait associated with interest in novel experiences, may play a key role in facilitating this process. High-OE individuals tend to...

Older adults exposed to enriched environments (EE) maintain relatively higher levels of cognitive function, even in the face of compromised markers of brain health. Response speed (RS) is often used as a simple proxy to measure the preservation of global cognitive function in older adults. However, it is unknown which specific selection, decision,...

It has been proposed that upregulation of the noradrenergic (NA) system through exposure to novelty might be one of the key components for building cognitive reserve and resilience to neurodegeneration. A personality trait that promotes greater interest in novel experiences is Openness to Experience (OE). Individuals who are high in OE exhibit stro...

Key Findings: greater Locus Coeruleus MRI signal intensity is related to greater Openness to Experience personality trait across 135 healthy young subjects INTRODUCTION It has been proposed that the upregulation of noradrenergic system through exposure to novelty might be one of the key components for building cognitive reserve and therefore resil...

Exposure to enriched environments throughout a lifetime, providing so called reserve, protects against cognitive decline in later years. It has been hypothesised that high levels of alertness necessitated by enriched environments might strengthen the right fronto-parietal networks to facilitate this neurocognitive resilience. We have previously sho...

Goal-directed behavior is dependent upon the ability to detect errors and implement appropriate posterror adjustments. Accordingly, several studies have explored the neural activity underlying error-monitoring processes, identifying the insula cortex as crucial for error awareness and reporting mixed findings with respect to the anterior cingulate...

Goal-directed behaviour is dependent upon the ability to detect errors and implement appropriate post-error adjustments. Accordingly, several studies have explored the neural activity underlying error-monitoring processes, identifying the insula cortex as crucial for error awareness and reporting mixed findings with respect to the anterior cingulat...

Older adults exposed to enriched environments (EE) maintain relatively higher levels of cognitive function, even in the face of compromised markers of brain health. Response speed (RS) is often used as a simple proxy to measure the preservation of global cognitive function in older adults. However, it is unknown which specific selection, decision,...

Exposure to enriched environments (EE) throughout a lifetime, providing so called reserve, protects against cognitive decline in later years. It has been hypothesised that high levels of alertness necessitated by EE might strengthen the right fronto-parietal networks (FPN) to facilitate this neurocognitive resilience. We have previously shown that...

Objectives Mental fatigue, ‘brain fog’, and difficulties maintaining engagement are commonly reported issues in a range of neurological and psychiatric conditions. Traditional sustained attention tasks commonly measure this capacity as the ability to detect target stimuli based on sensory features in the auditory or visual domains. However, with th...

Objective Mental fatigue, ‘brain fog’ and difficulties maintaining engagement are commonly reported issues in a range of neurological and psychiatric conditions. Traditional sustained attention tasks commonly measure this capacity as the ability to detect target stimuli based on sensory features in the auditory or visual domains. However, with this...

Age-related deterioration of attention decreases the ability to stay focused on the task at hand due to less efficient selection of relevant information and increased distractibility in the face of irrelevant, but salient stimuli. While older (compared with younger) adults may have difficulty suppressing salient distractors, the extent of these cha...

Age-related deterioration of attention decreases the ability to stay focused on the task at hand due to less efficient selection of relevant information and increased distractibility in the face of irrelevant, but salient stimuli. While older (compared with younger) adults may have difficulty suppressing salient distractors, the extent of these cha...

Animal neurophysiological studies have identified neural signals within dorsal frontoparietal areas that trace a perceptual decision by accumulating sensory evidence over time and trigger action upon reaching a threshold. Although analogous accumulation-to-bound signals are identifiable on extracranial human electroencephalography, their cortical o...

A visual attention span (VAS) deficit has been widely reported in the Developmental Dyslexia (DD) literature, however, consensus regarding what underlies this problem and the nature of its relationship with reading ability remains elusive. Thirty-two children with DD (15 females) were compared with 23 age matched (12 females) and 17 reading matched...

Recent behavioral modeling and pupillometry studies suggest that neuromodulatory arousal systems play a role in regulating decision formation but neurophysiological support for these observations is lacking. We employed a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover design to probe the impact of pharmacological enhancement of catechola...

Disorders of motivation, such as apathy, are common in Parkinson's disease, and a key feature of such disorders is a greater aversion to effort. In humans, the experience of cognitive effort is ubiquitous, and cognitive apathy has traditionally been considered distinct and separable from other subtypes. Surprisingly, however, the neurobiology of co...

Recent behavioural modelling and pupillometry studies suggest that neuromodulatory arousal systems play a role in regulating decision formation but neurophysiological support for these observations is lacking. We employed a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover design to probe the impact of pharmacological enhancement of catecho...

The ability to sustain attention is integral to healthy cognition in aging. The right PFC (rPFC) is critical for maintaining high levels of attentional focus. Whether plasticity of this region can be harnessed to support sustained attention in older adults is unknown. We used transcranial direct current stimulation to increase cortical excitability...

The current study examined the effects of physical fitness and aerobic exercise on cognitive functioning and coherence of the electroencephalogram in 30 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 14 years. Participants were first classified as fit or unfit and then performed a modified Eriksen flanker task after a bout of acute exercise and after a per...