PREFACE The year of 1998 brought major changes for the institute. October saw the move to our newly completed building. A month earlier, the MEG group had relocated from the inner city area to a site outside Leipzig to ensure that future MEG measurements would be uncontaminated by envi- ronmental noise. The decision to move the MEG was taken after it became clear that passive and active noise cancellation techniques would not allow the generation of an adequate signal to noise ratio in the inner city of Leipzig. The relocation of the MEG group as well as that of the whole institute was implemented in an amazingly smooth manner thanks to the enormous commitment of the head of administration Ingrid Schmude and the head of the information technology group Helmut Hayd and their staff. In May 1998, the institute underwent its first site visit and scientific evaluation by its international advisory committee or 'Fachbeirat'. Together with the advisory committee and the President of the Max Planck Society the decision was taken to enlarge the institute by the addition of a Junior Research Group to be established in 1999. As in previous years, the scientific work carried out in 1998 centered around two main topics: the neurocognition of language and the neurocognition of memory, both in healthy and in neurologi- cally impaired adults. The research undertakings were accompanied by developments in measure- ment techniques and experimental methods, as well as in signal and image processing and model- ling. To strengthen further the collaboration with the University of Leipzig, Yves von Cramon agreed to direct the Neuroscience Department of the Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Research (IZKF) and Angela Friederici the Center of Advanced Studies (ZHS) of the University of Leipzig. The present report provides an insight into the research objectives realized in 1998. Many of the achievements were made possible by the close cooperation between the two departments, Neurol- ogy and Neuropsychology, at the MPI of Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig. Angela D. Friederici Leipzig, February 1999 D. Yves von Cramon TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE 1 ORGANIZATION OF THE INSTITUTE 9 2 STRUCTURE OF THE INSTITUTE 13 3 RESEARCH 15 3.1 NEUROCOGNITION OF LANGUAGE 15 3.2 NEUROCOGNITION OF MEMORY 39 3.3 CLINICAL NEUROPSYCHOLOGY 57 3.4 PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS IN NEUROIMAGING 79 3.5 SIGNAL AND IMAGE PROCESSING 87 3.6 NUCLEAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE 101 3.7 MEG AND EEG: SIGNAL ANALYSIS AND MODELLING 109 4 OTHER ACTIVITIES 121 5 DEGREES AND AWARDS 129 6 PUBLICATIONS 131 7 INDEX OF NAMES 153 ORGANIZATION OF THE INSTITUTE 1 Directors: Friederici, Angela D. von Cramon, D. Yves Scientific research staff: Alter, Kai Lohmann, Gabriele Arnold, Thomas (e) Maeß, Burkhard Bublak, Peter Mecklinger, Axel Driesel, Wolfgang Müller, Ulrich Ferstl, Evelyn C. (d) Murai, Toshia (i) Gunter, Thomas C. Niendorf, Thoralf (*) Gruber, Oliver Norris, David G. Hahne, Anja Pelegrini, Melanie (*) Hayd, Helmut Pfeifer, Erdmut (*) Herrmann, Christoph S. Pollmann, Stefan Hoppe, Christian (h) Schubert, Torsten Hund-Georgiadis, Margret Schwarzbauer, Christian Jescheniak, Jörg D. (a) (d) Städtgen, Mario (*) Knösche, Thomas R. (*) Uhl, Christian (*) Kölsch, Stefan Werheid, Katja (h) Kotz, Sonja A. Wiggins, Christopher J. Kruggel, Frithjof Wolters, Carsten H. Kühn, Katja (*) Visiting Research Fellows: Hojjatoleslami, A. (Iran) Rajapakse, Jagath C. (Sri Lanka) (*) Lan, Zhang-Dan (China) (*) Svensén, Markus (Sweden) Penney, Trevor B.(USA) Vos, Sandra H. (The Netherlands) PhD. Students: Biedermann, Franziska Müller-Plath, Gisela Bosch, Volker Neßler, Doreen Dove, Anja Opitz, Bertram Dymond, Rosemary C. Schubotz, Ricarda (b) Fiebach, Christian J. Seltmann, Ina (*) Frisch, Stefan Steinhauer, Karsten (a) Hartmann, Ulrich (*) Ullsperger, Markus (f) Hussain, Ishtiaq Ungerer, Kristina Hutt, Axel Wagner, Susanne Jacobsen, Thomas (*) Weidner, Ralf (a) Jovicich, Jorge Weih, Katrin (d) Koch, Martin Wollny, Gert Lorenz, Annegret Zysset, Stefan Meyer, Martin M. Sc. Students/Student Assistants: Allert, Juliane Märkert, Andreas (e) Benne, Cornelia Mairif, Patrick Born, Anja Meier, Jan (*) Bungert, Peggy (*) Mleinek, Ina (a) Busch, Astrid (b) (*) Nebe, Volker (*) De Filippis, Monica (*) Neumann, Anja Drietchen, Nadine (a) (*) Nitzl, Almut (*) Elsner, Matthias (*) Ochotta, Tilo (e) Frauenheim, Michael (*) Reimann, Brit (*) Fuchs, Sandra (*) Rohe, Tobias (a) Gatzky, Janina (*) Rupert, Verena (*) Giesa, Nicole (*) Sabisch, Beate M. (*) Göritz, Anja (*) Saupe, Nadja (*) Grünewald, Christin (a) Schirmer, Annett (a) Heßler, Sven (*) Schlieder, Torsten Herrmann, Alexandra Schmidt, Björn-Helmer Höhmann, Andreas Schüller, Arlett Hülsmann, Sabine (*) Springer, Anne-Kristin (*) Jastrebow, Jana (*) Stolterfoth, Britta (a) (*) Jochimsen, Thiess (*) Sturm, Philipp (*) Trautmann, Sven supported by (a) Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (b) Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (c) Forschungszentrum Jülich (BRIAN) (d) Universität Leipzig (e) Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie (BMBF) (f) Gertrud-Reemtsma-Stiftung (g) Sächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst (SMWK) (h) Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Klinische Forschung (IZKF) (i) Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) (*) left the institute during 1998 10 Köhler, Ralf (*) von Mengershausen, Michael (*) Kopp, Franziska (a) (*) Wagner, Valentin Kotz, Daniel (*) Weigl, Matthias Kowalski, Jan (*) Weskott, Thomas (a) (*) Kruspe, Matthias Wild, Christopher (*) Lex, Ulrike (*) Technical Staff: Böthel, Heike Nowagk, Rainer Busker-Rössig, Sabine (*) Oertel, Ulrich Gast-Sandmann, Andrea Pitzmaus, Anke Härtwig, Jörg (c) Rüdiger, Gerfried (g) Hertwig, Reiner Schmidt, Cornelia Johst, Bettina Schmidt-Duderstedt, Heike Koch, Ina Struensee, Mike Koitzsch, Sabine Weder, Manfred Korsawe, Heiko Wenge, Grit Koßack, Corinna Wiese, Joachim (*) Liebig, Stephan Wiesner, Katrin Meyer, Frank Wolff, Yvonne Administration and Other Services: Schmude, Ingrid, Head Müller, Adelheid Blank, René Werner, Tilo Gabler, Elke Zaspel, Kathleen Junghanns, Berndt Zimmermann, Astrid Landis, Beate Secretaries: Binder, Elke (*) Pöschl, Nicole Blumberg Marion Rudisch, Karin Misch, Claudia Librarian: Lewin, Gerlinde 11 Board of Trustees: Prof. Dr. Volker Bigl Rektor der Universität Leipzig Dr. Konrad Buschbeck Ministerialrat im Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie Peter Gutjahr-Löser Kanzler der Universität Leipzig Wolfgang Kellert Direktor der Deutschen Bank, Filiale Leipzig Dr. Wilhelm Krull Generalsekretär der Volkswagen-Stiftung Prof. Dr. Hans Joachim Meyer Staatsminister des Sächsischen Staatsministeriums für Wissenschaft und Kunst Susanne Schlichting Präsidentin des Verwaltungsgerichts Leipzig Wolfgang Tiefensee Oberbürgermeister der Stadt Leipzig August von Joest Odewald & Compagnie GmbH Scientific Council: Rudolf Cohen Universität Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany Hans-Joachim Freund Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany Merrill Garrett University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA Michael Rugg University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Scotland Kâmil Ugurbil University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA 12 STRUCTURE OF THE INSTITUTE 2 Magnetoencephalography MEG Neuropsychology Neurocognition of Language Neurocognition of Memory Max Planck Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience Clinical Neuropsychology Leipzig Psychological Methods in fMRI Neurology Signal and Image Processing Nuclear Magnetic Resonance NMR RESEARCH 3 NEUROCOGNITION OF LANGUAGE 3.1 Language processing and its functional representation in the brain are major research areas in our institute. Psycholinguistic theorizing and neuropsychological and neuro- physiological modelling, together with empirical data from both normals and from patients with circumscribed brain lesions, are considered in building a picture of the language-brain relationship. Measurements of language-related brain activity with high temporal resolution (EEG, MEG) and high spatial resolution (fMRI), are used to specify the processes and systems underlying language comprehension. This year the research focused not only on syntactic and semantic processes and their possible interaction, but also on the impact of prosodic information during auditory sentence comprehension. By means of fMRI we were able to identify the neuronal network of auditory sentence processing and to specify the particular subcomponents responsible for phonological, semantic, syntactic and prosodic aspects of language pro- cessing (3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3). Furthermore, it was shown that the specific networks sup- porting semantic processing and syntactic processing are activated as a function of task demands even when processing single words (3.1.4). The temporal characteristics of the activation of the different subprocesses can be ex- plored by means of neurophysiological measures. A number of studies focused on syn- tactic processes trying to specify early processes of phrase structure building (reflected by the early negativity) and late processes of reanalysis and repair (reflected by late positivities) using depth electrodes (3.1.5), brain surface current density mapping (3.1.6) and spatio-temporal principle component analyses (3.1.7). The existence of the two syntactic processing components, i.e. the early negativity and the late positivity, was shown even in sentences containing no semantic information (3.1.8). The interesting question of the extent to which prosodic information affects syntactic parsing was investigated