Dr Jennifer Cook
University position
Research Associate
Departments
Institutes
Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute
Home page
https://sites.google.com/site/ps... (personal home page)
Research Themes
Interests
My work investigates social cognition and learning in the typical brain and in conditions associated with social difficulties such as Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) and Schizophrenia.
My doctoral work focused on action observation and imitation. Using techniques such as motion-tracking in virtual reality, eye-tracking, and reaction time analysis we showed that adults with ASC significantly differ from control participants in some aspects of biological motion processing and in the control of imitative behaviours. In addition, in typical adults, we used MEG and fMRI to investigate the response profile of the Mirror Neuron System and biological motion processing areas to human movements.
In addition to my PhD work I have used fMRI and pharmacological manipulations to investigate the roles of dopamine mediated associative learning mechanisms and serotonin in reward processing, decision-making and social perception. I am currently investigating cognitive training for Schizophrenia.
Research Focus
KeywordsSocial Cognition Learning Autism Schizophrenia Mirror Neurons |
Clinical conditionsAutism Schizophrenia |
Equipment
Behavioural analysis
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
Neuropsychological testing
Collaborators
CambridgeGuillaume Barbalat | United KingdomGeoff Bird Web: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/psychol... Sarah-Jayne Blakemore Web: http://sites.google.com/site/bl... Dan Campbell-Meiklejohn Web: http://www.campbell-meiklejohn.com/DCM/Wel... James Kilner Web: http://sites.google.com/site/ki... Clare Press Web: http://www.personal.reading.ac.uk/~rf902284/ Robert Rogers Web: http://www.neuroscience.ox.ac.uk/directo... InternationalAyse Saygin Web: http://www.sayginlab.org/apsaygi... |
Publications
2011
Campbell-Meiklejohn D, Wakeley J, Herbert V, Cook J, Scollo P, Ray MK, Selvaraj S, Passingham RE, Cowen P, Rogers RD (2011), “Serotonin and dopamine play complementary roles in gambling to recover losses.” Neuropsychopharmacology 36(2):402-10 Details
Cook J, Bird G (2011), “Social attitudes differentially modulate imitation in adolescents and adults.” Exp Brain Res 211(3-4):601-12 Details
Cook JL, Bird G (2011), “Atypical Social Modulation of Imitation in Autism Spectrum Conditions.” J Autism Dev Disord Details
Press C, Cook J, Blakemore SJ, Kilner J (2011), “Dynamic modulation of human motor activity when observing actions.” J Neurosci 31(8):2792-800 Details
Santiesteban I, White S, Cook J, Gilbert SJ, Heyes C, Bird G (2011), “Training social cognition: From imitation to Theory of Mind.” Cognition Details
2010
Saygin AP, Cook J, Blakemore SJ (2010), “Unaffected perceptual thresholds for biological and non-biological form-from-motion perception in autism spectrum conditions.” PLoS One 5(10):e13491 Details
2009
Cook J, Saygin AP, Swain R, Blakemore SJ (2009), “Reduced sensitivity to minimum-jerk biological motion in autism spectrum conditions.” Neuropsychologia 47(14):3275-8 Details
Research and Collaboration
News, events and seminars
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