the-BA : BA Press Release - 6 September 2006 (Lambon-Ralph)

Four-legged duck (Copyright: Lambon-Ralph & Howard)

By studying patients suffering from semantic dementia and by carrying out transient impairment of healthy individuals, Professor Lambon-Ralph of the University of Manchester has located a specific part of the brain involved in retaining meanings and revealed the huge impact on the lives of individuals for whom this goes wrong.

While most of us take our ability to understand the world around us for granted, others are not so lucky. Some people who have suffered brain damage in a specific part of their brain, be it from stroke, dementia, infection or head injury, suffer from a breakdown in the storage of meanings. This leads to major disabilities and a compromised ability to work, play and communicate.

“Conceptual knowledge or semantic memory refers to our store of meanings for words, objects, people and so on. It is the way our brain gives meaning to all the sensory experience in our lives. It is also at the heart of communication and language,” Professor Lambon-Ralph explains.

“We have used multiple, intersecting methods to answer the question of how the brain comes to store meanings and concepts. These include the study of patients with a particular type of dementia, brain imaging methods and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) – a technique that uses a magnetic coil to ‘tire-out’ a small area of the brain.”

Professor Lambon-Ralph will present his findings as part of the BA Charles Darwin Award Lecture – ‘The case of the four-legged duck: investigations of concepts and meaning’ at the BA Festival of Science – taking place in Norwich from 2-9 September and bringing together over 300 of the UK’s top scientists and engineers to discuss the latest scientific developments with the public.

Patients with semantic dementia suffer gradual loss of tissue from part of the brain known as the anterior temporal lobe, resulting in a progressive breakdown of concepts. “Concepts are not deleted as whole entities but, instead, they gradually degrade,” says Professor Lambon-Ralph. “This means that similar concepts become increasingly difficult for the patients to tell apart and they begin to confuse one concept with another.”

“Patients show this pattern, irrespective of which type of input is probed – thus they show poor understanding of spoken words, written words, pictures, smells, sounds and touch. This indicates that our meanings are stored in abstract form and serve all the different forms of verbal and sensory input. The same problems are exhibited when the patients try to express this knowledge – they substitute a related name (for example “duck” becomes “chicken” or “cat”) and sometimes produce striking drawings in which concepts seem to merge together, mixing up information about birds and animals to produce four-legged ducks.”

Using a special form of brain imaging, Professor Lambon-Ralph has shown that the temporal lobe damaged in dementia patients is widely connected to the rest of the brain.

“We have used computer/mathematical models to mimic the functioning of this area and its brain connections, and thus show how concepts are formed. It does this by bringing together information from all the different senses and distilling this into a unified store,” he explains.

By using TMS to temporarily fatigue the temporal lobe of healthy patients, Professor Lambon-Ralph has been able to mimic the symptoms of semantic dementia patients. Although the effects are not as marked as in sufferers, it has allowed him to isolate a key location of concept storage in the brain.

The opportunity to present a popular and prestigious BA award lecture at the Festival of Science is offered to five outstanding communicators each year. The award lectures aim to promote open and informed discussion on issues involving science and actively encourage young scientists to explore the social aspects of their research, providing them with reward and recognition for doing so.

In addition to lectures and debates at the University of East Anglia, the Festival will also feature a host of events throughout Norwich as part of the Science in the City programme.

This year’s Festival is supported by the University of East Anglia, the East of England Development Agency and Microsoft Research. The Press Centre is sponsored by AstraZeneca.

For further information on the BA Festival of Science, visit www.the-ba.net/festivalofscience.

ENDS

This year’s Festival is supported by the University of East Anglia, the East of England Development Agency and Microsoft Research. The Press Centre is sponsored by AstraZeneca.

For further information please contact:

Lisa Hendry, Press Assistant, the BA
Tel: +44 (0)20 7019 4946
Email: lisa.hendry@the-ba.net

Note for editors

1. The BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science) is the UK's nationwide, open membership organisation that exists to advance the public understanding, accessibility and accountability of the sciences and engineering. Established in 1831, the BA organises major initiatives across the UK, including the annual BA Festival of Science, National Science Week, programmes of regional and local events, and an extensive programme for young people in schools and colleges. For more information about the BA, please visit www.the-ba.net.

2. Speakers have been asked to submit press papers for their talks, which include a summary of the talk and what is newsworthy about their research. Press papers will be available from mid-August at www.the-ba.net/presspapers.

3. To register for access to the press papers or to the Press Centre at the BA Festival of Science, visit www.the-ba.net/pressregister.

4. The BA Festival of Science 2006 is being hosted in Norwich by the University of East Anglia, Norwich Research Park and Norwich City Council.

5. The University of East Anglia (UEA) is an internationally renowned, research-led University. Over 13,000 students from more than 100 countries and around 2500 staff enjoy its architecturally distinguished campus on the edge of the city of Norwich. UEA is known for its pioneering and collaborative approach to research, bringing together academics from different disciplines to create innovative research groups. The latest Research Assessment Exercise (2001) confirmed the breadth and depth of UEA's research excellence through the achievement of the top 5* or 5 ratings in eleven subject areas, with staff inclusion rates in the top 10% across the board.

6. The East of England Development Agency (EEDA) is the driving force behind sustainable economic regeneration in the East of England: Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk. Its vision is to create a leading economy, founded on a world class knowledge base, creativity and enterprise to improve the quality of life for all who live and work here. EEDA aims to do this by: (1) Setting and shaping the direction of economic development in the region, (2) Persuading and influencing others to bring resources together, (3) Investing in imaginative projects that challenge the norm. For further information visit www.eeda.org.uk.

7. Founded in 1991, Microsoft Research is dedicated to conducting both basic and applied research in computer science and software engineering. Its goals are to enhance the user experience on computing devices, reduce the cost of writing and maintaining software, and invent novel computing technologies. Researchers focus on more than 55 areas of computing and collaborate with leading academic, government and industry researchers to advance the state of the art in such areas as graphics, speech recognition, user-interface research, natural language processing, programming tools and methodologies, operating systems and networking, and the mathematical sciences. Microsoft Research employs more than 700 people in five labs located in Redmond, Wash.; Silicon Valley, Calif.; Cambridge, England; Beijing, China; and Bangalore, India. Microsoft Research collaborates openly with colleges and universities worldwide to enhance the teaching and learning experience, inspire technological innovation, and broadly advance the field of computer science. More information can be found at www.research.microsoft.com.

	Home

	Press Office

	Press Releases

	2007 Press Releases

	2006 Press Releases

	2005 Press Releases

	2004 Press Releases