• Abnormal phasic activity in saliency network, motor areas, and basal ganglia in Parkinson's disease during rhythm perception 

      Vikene, Kjetil; Skeie, Geir Olve; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2018-10-29)
      Behavioral studies indicate that persons with Parkinson's disease have complexity dependent problems with the discrimination of auditory rhythms. Furthermore, neuroimaging studies show that rhythm processing activates many brain areas that overlap with areas affected by Parkinson's disease (PD). This study sought to investigate the neural correlates of rhythm processing in PD and healthy controls, ...
    • Altered resting state effective connectivity of anterior insula in depression 

      Kandilarova, Sevdalina; Stoyanov, Drozdstoy; Kostianev, Stefan; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2018-03-15)
      Depression has been associated with changes in both functional and effective connectivity of large scale brain networks, including the default mode network, executive network, and salience network. However, studies of effective connectivity by means of spectral dynamic causal modeling (spDCM) are still rare and the interaction between the different resting state networks has not been investigated ...
    • Associations between lesion size, lesion location and aphasia in acute stroke 

      Døli, Hedda; Helland, Wenche A; Helland, Turid; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2020-02-16)
      <i>Background</i>: The localization and organization of language has been an ongoing research interest ever since the early findings of Paul Broca. The emergence of neuroimaging the past 20 years has given us new insights on the anatomical and structural organization of the brain. Lesion studies on patients with aphasia can provide knowledge on where and how specific language functions are organized ...
    • Associations between stroke severity, aphasia severity, lesion location, and lesion size in acute stroke, and aphasia severity one year post stroke 

      Døli, Hedda; Helland, Wenche Andersen; Helland, Turid; Næss, Halvor; Hofstad, Håkon; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2021-12-15)
      Background - The aim of the present study was to investigate the associations stroke severity, aphasia severity, lesion location and lesion size in acute stroke, and aphasia severity in the subacute and chronic stages post stroke. We hypothesized that initial stroke severity and aphasia severity were associated with the patient’s aphasia severity in the subacute and chronic stages of stroke. We ...
    • Children with dyslexia show cortical hyperactivation in response to increasing literacy processing demands 

      Morken, Frøydis; Helland, Turid; Hugdahl, Kenneth; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2014)
    • Combined fMRI region- and network-analysis reveal new insights of top-down modulation of bottom-up processes in auditory laterality 

      Kazimierczak, Katarzyna; Craven, Alexander R.; Ersland, Lars; Specht, Karsten; Dumitru, Magda L.; Sandøy, Lydia B.; Hugdahl, Kenneth (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2022-01-18)
      Dichotic listening along with the right-ear advantage (REA) has been a standard method of investigating auditory laterality ever since it was first introduced into neuropsychology in the early 1960s. Beginning in the 1980s, authors reported that it was possible to modulate the bottom-up driven perceptual REA by instructing subjects to selectively attend to and report only from the right or left ...
    • Compensatory task-specific hypersensitivity in bilateral planum temporale and right superior temporal gyrus during auditory rhythm and omission processing in Parkinson’s disease 

      Vikene, Kjetil; Skeie, Geir Olve; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2019-09-02)
      Persons with Parkinson’s disease have general timing deficits and have difficulties in rhythm discrimination tasks. The basal ganglia, a crucial part of Parkinson’s disease pathology, is believed to play an important role in rhythm and beat processing, with a possible modulation of basal ganglia activity by level of rhythmic complexity. As dysfunction in basal ganglia impacts function in other brain ...
    • Considerations on brain age predictions from repeatedly sampled data across time 

      Korbmacher, Max; Wang, Mengyun; Eikeland, Rune; Buchert, Ralph; Andreassen, Ole; Espeseth, Thomas; Leonardsen, Esten Høyland; Westlye, Lars Tjelta; Maximov, Ivan; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2023-08-16)
      Introduction - Brain age, the estimation of a person's age from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) parameters, has been used as a general indicator of health. The marker requires however further validation for application in clinical contexts. Here, we show how brain age predictions perform for the same individual at various time points and validate our findings with age-matched healthy controls.<p> ...
    • Current challenges in translational and clinical fMRI and future directions 

      Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2020-01-08)
      Translational neuroscience is an important field that brings together clinical praxis with neuroscience methods. In this review article, the focus will be on functional neuroimaging (fMRI) and its applicability in clinical fMRI studies. In the light of the “replication crisis,” three aspects will be critically discussed: First, the fMRI signal itself, second, current fMRI praxis, and, third, the ...
    • Deep brain imaging of three participants across 1 year: The Bergen breakfast scanning club project 

      Wang, Meng-yun; Korbmacher, Max; Eikeland, Rune Andreas; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2022-10-17)
      Our understanding of the cognitive functions of the human brain has tremendously benefited from the population functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies in the last three decades. The reliability and replicability of the fMRI results, however, have been recently questioned, which has been named the replication crisis. Sufficient statistical power is fundamental to alleviate the crisis, ...
    • Dynamic up- and down-regulation of the default (DMN) and extrinsic (EMN) mode networks during alternating task-on and task-off periods 

      Hugdahl, Kenneth; Kazimierczak, Katarzyna Anna; Beresniewicz, Justyna; Kompus, Kristiina; Westerhausen, René; Ersland, Lars; Grüner, Renate; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2019-09-19)
      Using fMRI, Hugdahl et al. (2015) reported the existence of a general-domain cortical network during active task-processing which was non-specific to the cognitive task being processed. They labelled this network the extrinsic mode network (EMN). The EMN would be predicted to be negatively, or anti-correlated with the classic default mode network (DMN), typically observed during periods of rest, ...
    • Effects of music production on cortical plasticity within cognitive rehabilitation of patients with mild traumatic brain injury 

      Vik, Berit; Skeie, Geir Olve; Vikane, Eirik; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2018-02-01)
      Objective: We explored the effects of playing the piano on patients with cognitive impairment after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and, addressed the question if this approach would stimulate neural networks in re-routing neural connections and link up cortical circuits that had been functional inhibited due to disruption of brain tissue. Functional neuroimaging scans (fMRI) and neuropsychological ...
    • Eliciting false auditory perceptions using speech frequencies and semantic priming: a signal detection approach 

      Laloyaux, Julien; Hirnstein, Marco; Specht, Karsten; Giersch, Anne; Larøi, Frank (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2022-02-04)
      Introduction - Individuals experiencing auditory hallucinations (AH) tend to perceive voices when exposed to random noise. However, the factors driving this tendency remain unclear. The present study examined the interaction of a top-down (expectations) and bottom-up (type of noise) process to better understand the mechanisms that underlie AH.<p> <p>Methods - Fifty-two healthy individuals (29 ...
    • Evaluation of a Simple Clinical Language Paradigm With Respect to Sensory Independency, Functional Asymmetry, and Effective Connectivity 

      Rødland, Erik; Melleby, Kathrine Midgaard; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2022-03-03)
      The present study replicates a known visual language paradigm, and extends it to a paradigm that is independent from the sensory modality of the stimuli and, hence, could be administered either visually or aurally, such that both patients with limited sight or hearing could be examined. The stimuli were simple sentences, but required the subject not only to understand the content of the sentence but ...
    • An fMRI-study on single-sided deafness: Spectral-temporal properties and side of stimulation modulates hemispheric dominance 

      Heggdal, Peder Olaf Laugen; Aarstad, Hans Jørgen; Brännström, Jonas; Vassbotn, Flemming; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2019-08-06)
      <i>Objective</i>: Our main aim was to investigate the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) response to monaural and binaural speech- and non-speech stimuli as measured with fMRI in subjects with single-sided deafness and in normal hearing controls. We hypothesised that the response to monaural stimulation in both normal hearing subjects and persons with single-sided deafness would vary with the ...
    • The functional and structural asymmetries of the superior temporal sulcus 

      Specht, Karsten; Wigglesworth, Philip (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2018-01-22)
      The superior temporal sulcus (STS) is an anatomical structure that increasingly interests researchers. This structure appears to receive multisensory input and is involved in several perceptual and cognitive core functions, such as speech perception, audiovisual integration, (biological) motion processing and theory of mind capacities. In addition, the superior temporal sulcus is not only one of the ...
    • Glutamatergic modulation of auditory cortex connectivity with attentional brain networks in unpredictable perceptual environment 

      Kompus, Kristiina; Volehaugen, Vegard; Craven, Alexander R.; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2020-09-14)
      In a stable environment the brain can minimize processing required for sensory input by forming a predictive model of the surrounding world and suppressing neural response to predicted stimuli. Unpredicted stimuli lead to a prediction error signal propagation through the perceptual network, and resulting adjustment to the predictive model. The inter-regional plasticity which enables the model-building ...
    • An Information-Theoretic Analysis of Resting-State versus Task fMRI 

      Tuominen, Julia Axiina; Specht, Karsten; Vaisvilaite, Liucija; Zeidman, Peter (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2023-03-20)
      Resting-state fMRI is an increasingly popular alternative to task-based fMRI. However, a formal quantification of the amount of information provided by resting-state fMRI as opposed to active task conditions about neural responses is lacking. We conducted a systematic comparison of the quality of inferences derived from a resting-state and a task fMRI paradigm by means of Bayesian Data Comparison. ...
    • The intra-individual reliability of 1H-MRS measurement in the anterior cingulate cortex across 1 year 

      Wang, Mengyun; Korbmacher, Max; Eikeland, Rune; Craven, Alexander R.; Specht, Karsten (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2023-11-20)
      Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) is the primary method that can measure the levels of metabolites in the brain in vivo. To achieve its potential in clinical usage, the reliability of the measurement requires further articulation. Although there are many studies that investigate the reliability of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), comparatively few studies have investigated the reliability of ...
    • Language lateralisation measured across linguistic and national boundaries 

      Hausmann, Markus; Brysbaert, Marc; van der Haegen, Lise; Lewald, Jörg; Specht, Karsten; Hirnstein, Marco; Willemin, Julie; Barton, Jack; Buchilly, Delia; Chmetz, Florian; Roch, Maja; Brederoo, Sanne; Dael, Nele; Mohr, Christine (Journal article; Tidsskriftartikkel; Peer reviewed, 2018-11-03)
      The visual half-field technique has been shown to be a reliable and valid neuropsychological measurement of language lateralisation, typically showing higher accuracy and faster correct responses for linguistic stimuli presented in the right visual field (RVF) than left visual field (LVF). The RVF advantage corresponds to the well-known dominance of the left hemisphere (LH) in processing language(s). ...