Prof. Dr. Peter Brugger

 

Main Goals, Keywords

Links between behavioral neurology, neuropsychiatry and cognitive psychology with special interests in the borderlands between highly adaptive and maladaptive behavior and thought.

Language: development and right hemisphere participation; numerical cognition: biology and culture; randomness in behavior and thought; representation of body and self and of space and time. Interhemispheric cooperation.

Group Members

Two clinical neuropsychologists, 1 clinical neurologist

Previous and Current Research

In healthy subjects, we explore the neuropsychological underpinnings of social cognition, belief systems and perceptual-cognitive phenomena bordering to hallucination and delusion. We are interested in disentangling frames of reference in the representation of space, in the process of "embodiment" and in the experience of time. Clinical research investigates selected cognitive sequelae of neurological disorders such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, brain tumors and Parkinson's disease. A special focus is on cortical reorganization processes after peripheral deafferentation/deefferentation syndromes including congenital limb deficiencies.

Future Projects

Functional and structural cerebral correlates of (corporeal) identity disorders. Hemispheric organization of language as a function of unilaterally deficient limb development. Impaired social cognition in neurological disorders. Hemispheric lateralization of emotion. Pharmacogenetics of sleep and emotional-cognitive functions.

Techniques and Equipment

Techniques: Sensory stimulation and cognitive testing, if appropriate in combination with various neuroimaging techniques.

Equipment: Paper, pencils and computer.

Selected Publications

• Brugger P, Lenggenhager B, Giummarra MJ. Xenomelia: a social neuroscience view of altered bodily self-consciousness. Front Psychol. 2013 Apr 24;4:204. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00204. Print 2013.
• Krummenacher P, Kut E, Folkers G, Brugger P. Naloxone modulates visual judgments of similarity but not dissimilarity. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2013 Mar 14. [Epub ahead of print]
• Christen M, Vitacco DA, Huber L, Harboe J, Fabrikant SI, Brugger P. Colorful brains: 14 years of display practice in functional neuroimaging. Neuroimage. 2013 Jun;73:30-9. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2013.01.068. Epub 2013 Feb 9.
• Hilti LM, Hänggi J, Vitacco DA, Kraemer B, Palla A, Luechinger R, Jäncke L, Brugger P. The desire for healthy limb amputation: structural brain correlates and clinical features of xenomelia. Brain. 2013 Jan;136(Pt 1):318-29. doi: 10.1093/brain/aws316. Epub 2012 Dec 20.

Selected Lectures, Seminars, Colloquia

KLINEX - Kolloquium für klinische und experimentelle Neuropsychologie; Verhaltensneurologisches Kolloquium (WS); Aktuelle Probleme der Neurologie, Neurochirurgie und Hirnforschung; Neurorama.

Funding

Swiss National Science Foundation