Franco Lepore, Ph.D.

Franco Lepore is full professor in the Department of Psychology at the Université de Montréal. He also directs the Centre de Recherche en Neuropsychologie et Cognition (CERNEC) at the Université de Montréal

CONTACT

Université de Montréal
Marie-Victorin Building
P.O. Box 6128, Station Centre-ville
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3C 3J7

Phone: 514-343-2341
Fax: 514-343-5787
Email :cernec@umontreal.ca

SUMMARY OF RESEARCH ACTIVITIES

Members have access to a leading-edge technology infrastructure. In fact, several members recently obtained individual infrastructure funds from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (Canada Research Chairs, establishment funds for young investigators). These funds made it possible to purchase different instruments for recording cognitive or sensory evoked potentials, optical imaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation. The Canada Foundation for Innovation also gave a substantial grant to a group of researchers including members of the CERNEC, for installation of a brain-imaging platform with a 3T fMRI. Members of the CENERC use this imaging platform, installed at the Institut universitaire de gériatrie De Montréal, regularly. In addition, the CENERC has agreements with the CHUM (Hôpital Notre-Dame) and the Montreal Neurological Institute regarding use of their 1.5T fMRI.

The group also has three laboratories that are very well equipped for studying visual and auditory systems using optical imaging and unicellular activity recording in animals.

Over the course of 2006, the CERNEC set up a completely operational Magnetoencephalography (MEG) laboratory with a major 2005 grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation. A number of CERNEC members and their students, as well as other research units, currently use this brain activity-recording platform for their experiments. This research platform, unique in Québec, is kept operational by an engineer, three research officers and two technicians specialized in electrophysiology. The BRAMS, one of the CERNEC’s research axes also received a major grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation to set up an important infrastructure for studies of neural correlates of music perception in children and in normal and pathological adults.

Finally, there is a CERNEC laboratory equipped with simulators to study cognitive and emotional problematics related to driving. CERNEC members also have access to other laboratories to study the sensory and cognitive functions in normal and epileptic newborns (Hôpital Ste-Justine) and elderly persons (Institut Universitaire de Gériatrie).

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Belleville, S., Rouleau, N., Van der Linden, M. (2006). Use of the Hayling task to measure inhibition of prepotent responses in normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease. Brain and cognition, 62, 113-119.

Caron, M-J., Mottron, L., Berthiaume, C. (2006). Cognitive mechanisms, specificity and neural underpinnings of the block design peak in autism. Brain, 129, 1789-1802.

Charron, J., Rainville, P., Marchand, S. (2006). Direct comparison of placebo effects on clinical andexperimental pain. Clinical Journal of Pain, 22, 204-211.

Collignon, O., Lassonde M., Lepore, F., Bastien, D., Veraart, C. (2006). Specificity of the right dorsal stream for auditory-spatial processing in early blind subjects, Cerebral Cortex, 22, 1-9.

Fecteau, S, Lepage J.-F., Théoret H. (2006). Autism Spectrum Disorder: Seeing is not understanding. Current Biology 16, 131-133.

Gosselin,N., Samson, S., Adolphs, R., Noulhiane, M., Roy, M., Hasboun, D., Baulac, M., Peretz, I. (2006). Emotional responses to unpleasant music correlates with damage to the parahippocampal cortex. Brain,129, 2585-2592.

Joly, S., Pernet, V., Dorfman, A., Chemtob, S., Lachapelle, P. (2006). Light-induced retinopathy: comparing adult and juvenile rats. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science. 47, 3202-3212.

Monetta, L., Ouellet-Plamondon, C., Joanette, Y. (2006). Simulating the pattern of right-hemisphere-damaged patients for the processing of the alternative metaphorical meanings of words : Evidence in favor of a cognitive resources hypothesis. Brain and Language, 96, 171-177.

Plourde, G., Belin, P., Chartrand, D., Fiset, P., Backman, S.B., Xie, G., Zatorre, R.J. (2006). Cortical processing of complex auditory stimuli during alterations of consciousness with the general anesthetic propofol. Anesthesiology, 104, 448-457.

Vallée, M., Bradford, PT., McFayden, J., Swaine, B., Doyon, J., Cantin, J.F., Dumas, D. (2006). Effects of increasing physical and attention demands of the environment on locomotor ability following a traumatic brain injury. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 87, 806-813

USEFUL LINKS

Centre de recherche en neuropsychologie et cognition
Vision Integration Cognition Lab
Laboratoire de Neuropsychologie Sensorielle
Isabelle Peretz’s Research Laboratory

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