Erich Schröger
Wilhelm Wundt Institut für Psychologie
Universität Leipzig
Germany
“A framework for MMN theory and a taxonomy for MMN paradigms”
Prof. Dr. Erich Schröger was appointed to Leipzig University as professor of Biological Psychology in 1997 and and established the research group BioCog. Since 2001 he helds a Chair in Cognitive and Biological Psychology. He studied philosophy at the Munich School of Philosophy (bachelor’s degree in 1982) and psychology at the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (diploma in 1986), where he also received his doctorate (1991) and habilitation (1996). In the winter term 1991 he had been Research Fellow at the Cognitive Brain Research Unit, University of Helsinki. His research focuses on the processes underlying human perception, attention, action-perception cycle, (ir)regularity processing. He is also interested in the history and in the methods of psychology
jordan paul hamm
Neuroscience Institute
Georgia State University.
USA
“A cortical circuit for visual mismatch responses”
Dr. Jordan Hamm completed his Ph.D. with Brett Clementz at the University of Georgia in 2013, where his work focused on how EEG biomarkers (including mismatch negativity) present in populations of individuals with varying psychotic diagnoses and their first-degree families. In his postdoctoral training at Columbia University under the mentorship of Rafael Yuste, his research shifted to mouse models in order identify the roles of specific cortical interneurons (GABAergic cells) in supporting visual mismatch responses. He started his independent lab at Georgia State University in 2018, which focuses on a) how cortical feedback projections from higher brain regions modulate visual cortical micro-circuity to support mismatch responses, b) how these circuits develop in adolescence, and c) how psychedelic substances act on this circuitry in humans and mice to alter perception.
valéria csépe
Hungarian Academy of Science
Hungary
“The Many Faces of MMN”
Dr. Valéria Csépe is emeritus professor of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and neurolinguistics. Her scientific reputation started with the first study on the animal model of MMN published in 1987. The rapid rise of her research career following this publication helped her to build up a broad network of laboratories in Europe, Japan and the USA studying or planning to investigate the fundamental nature and application possibilities of the MMN. She worked and still works together with colleagues as PI, participant, or scientific advisor of national and international projects.
The turn of her interest on animal to human studies can be linked to her stay as Humboldt scholar in the early 90’s at the University of Münster, studying the magnetic mismatch response, where she started one of the first MMN infant studies as well. After her return to Budapest, she founded the laboratory of developmental psychophysiology, the first one in Hungary. She was one of the first ones to use the MMN for studying aphasic patients, childhood epilepsy and developmental reading disorders. Her research group’s publication on the MMN to word stress irregularity in infants is one of the first ones, and the use of MMN in investigating the nature and development of stress assignment of native regular, irregular, and foreign words. In 2015 she has initiated the establishment of Hungary’s only research MRI laboratory which belongs to the biggest research performing institution of the country, the Hungarian Research Network (HUN-REN). Twenty PhD candidates defended their degree under her supervision, the number of citations on her papers is over five thousand.
Valéria Csépe was elected for two terms as member of the ICSU’s (International Council of Scientific Unions, now ISC) Committee on Strategy and Planning is full member of the Academia Europea and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She served in two terms as deputy secretary general, the first female elected for such a high position, of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences between 2008 and 2014. She is member of the Academy’s Governing Board and its Presidium since May 2023. She is president of the Hungarian Higher Education Accreditation Committee (MAB) since 2018.