Professor Richard (Rik) Henson
Deputy Director at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
MRC Programme Leader
President of the British Neuroscience Association
Personal Statement
My primary interest concerns how the brain “remembers” things. Specifically, I use the techniques of fMRI and EEG/MEG to examine brain activity as healthy volunteers try to remember things in the laboratory, and relate these findings, via computational modelling, to the memory problems following damage in those brain regions. I am interested in the neural bases of both explicit (conscious) memory and implicit (unconscious) memory, particularly the relationship between recollection, familiarity, and priming, and the relationship between memory and (visual) perception. A deeper knowledge of these different expressions of memory is important for understanding the ubiquitous memory impairments associated with neurological damage, neurodegenerative diseases such as dementia, and normal ageing.
Useful Links
MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit Profile
Recent Publications
In press
Quent, A., Greve, A. & Henson, R.N. (in press). Shape of U: The non-monotonic relationship between object-location memory and expectedness Psychological Science.
Quent, A. & Henson, R.N. (in press). Novel immersive virtual reality experiences do not produce retroactive memory benefits for unrelated material. Registered Report, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology.
Tibon, R. Greve, A., Humphreys, G., Quent, A. & Henson, R.N. (in press). Do activations and representations differ during successful retrieval from episodic versus semantic memory? Accepted first stage of a Registered Report. Nature Human Behaviour.
Argyropoulos, G.P., Dell’Acqua, C., Bulter, E., Loane, C., Roca-Fernandez, A., Almozel, A., Drummond, N., Lage-Martinez, C., Cooper, E., Henson, R.N. & Butler, C.R. (in press). Functional specialization of the medial temporal lobes in human recognition memory: dissociating effects of hippocampal vs parahippocampal damage. Cerebral Cortex.
Visser, R.M., Henson, R.N. & Holmes, E.A. (in press). A naturalistic paradigm to investigate post-encoding neural activation patterns in relation to subsequent voluntary and intrusive recall of distressing events. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.
Farahibozorg, R., Henson, R., Woollams, A. & Hauk, O. (in press). Distinct roles for the Anterior Temporal Lobe and Angular Gyrus in the spatio-temporal cortical semantic network. Cerebral Cortex.
2022
Vaghari, D., Kabir, E. & Henson, R.N. (2022). Late Combination shows that MEG adds to MRI in classifying MCI versus Controls. Neuroimage, 152, 119054. [PDF]
Bethlehem et al. (2022). Brain charts for the human lifespan. Nature, 604, 7904. [PDF]
Karimi-Rouzbahani, H., Woolgar, A., Henson, R. & Nili, H. (2022). Caveats and Nuances of Model-Based and Model-Free Representational Connectivity Analysis. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 16, 755988. [PDF]
Walhovd, K.B., Fjell, A.M., Wang, Y., Amlien, I.K., Mowinckel, A.M., Lindenberger, U., Düzel, S., Bartrés-Faz, D., Ebmeier, K.P., Drevon, C.A., Baaré, W.F.C., Ghisletta, P., Johansen, L.B., Kievit, R.A., Henson, R.N., Madsen, K.S., Nyberg, L., Harris, J.R., Solé-Padullés, C., Pudas, S., Sørensen, Ø., Westerhausen, R., Zsoldos, E., Nawijn, L., Lyngstad, T.H., Suri, S., Penninx, B., Rogeberg, O.J., & Brandmaier, A.M. (2022). Education and Income Show Heterogeneous Relationships to Lifespan Brain and Cognitive Differences Across European and US Cohorts. Cerebral Cortex, 32(4), 839–854. [PDF]
2021
Nyberg, L., Magnussen, F., Lundquist, A., Baare, W., Bartrés-Faz, D., Bertram, L., Boraxbekk,, C.J, Brandmaier, A.M., Drevon, C.A., Ebmeier, K., Ghisletta, P., Henson, R.N., Kievit, R., Kleemeyer, M., Knights, E., Kühn, S., Lindenberger, U., Penninx, B., Pudas, S., Sørensen, Ø., Alcazar, L.V., Walhovd, K.B. & Fjell, A.M. (2021). Educational attainment does not influence brain aging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 118(18), e2101644118. [PDF]
Lau-Zhu, A., Henson, R.N. & Holmes, E.A. (2021). Selectively Interfering with Intrusive but not Voluntary Memories of a Trauma Film: Accounting for the Role of Associative Memory. Clinical Psychological Science, 9(6), 1128–1143. [PDF]
Quent, J.A., Henson, R.N. & Greve, A. (2021). A predictive account of how novelty influences declarative memory. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, 179, 107382. [PDF]
Ben-Yakov, A., Smith, V. & Henson, R.N. (2021). The limited reach of surprise: Evidence against effects of surprise on memory for preceding elements of an event. Registered Report. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-021-01954-5. [PDF]
Tibon, R., Tsevtanov, K.A., Price, D., Nesbitt, D., Cam-CAN & Henson, R.N. (2021). Transient neural network dynamics in cognitive ageing. Neurobiology of Aging, 105, 217–228. [PDF]
Kocagoncu, E., Nesbitt, D., Emery, T., Hughers, L., Henson, R. & Rowe, J. (2022). Neurophysiological and brain structural markers of cognitive frailty differ from Alzheimer’s disease. Journal of Neuroscience, 42, 1362–1373. [PDF]
Huang, P., Correia, M.M., Rua, C., Rodgers, C.T., Henson, R.N. & Carlin, J.D. (2021). Correcting for Superficial Bias in 7T Gradient Echo fMRI. Frontiers, Brain Imaging Methods. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2021.715549. [PDF]
Clift, J., Cooke, A., Isles, A.R., Dalley, J.W. & Henson, R.N. (2021). Lifting the lid on impact and peer review. Brain and Neuroscience Advances, 5, 1-7. [PDF]
Knights, E., Morcom, A. & Henson, R.N. (2021). Does Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in Older Adults (HAROLD) in motor cortex reflect compensation? Journal of Neuroscience, 41, 9361–9373. [PDF]
Vidal-Piñeiro, D., Wang, Y., Krogsrud, S.K., Amlien, I.K., Baaré, W.F.C., Bartrés-Faz, D., Bertram, L, Brandmaier, A.M., Drevon, C.A., Düzel, S., Ebmeier, K.P., Henson, R.N., Junque, C., Kievit, R.A., Kühn, S., Leonardsen, E. Lindenberger, U., Madsen, K.S., Magnussen, F., Mowinckel, A.M., Nyberg, L., Roe, J.M., Segura, B., Sørensen, Ø., Suri, S., Zsoldos, E., Australian Imaging Biomarkers and Lifestyle flagship study of ageing, Walhovd, K.B. & Fjell, A.M. (2021). “Brain age” relates to early life factors but not to accelerated brain aging. Elife. [PDF]
Bokeria, L., Henson, R.N. & Mok, R.M. (2021). Map-like representations of an abstract conceptual space in the human brain. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, section Cognitive Neuroscience, 15: 620056. [PDF]
Gellersen, H.M., Trelle, A.N., Henson, R.N. & Simons, J.S. (2021). Executive function and high ambiguity perceptual discrimination contribute to individual differences in mnemonic discrimination in older adults. Cognition, 104556. [PDF]
Wang, Y.C., Sohoglu, E., Gilbert, R.A., Henson, R.N. & Davis, M.H. (2021). Predictive Neural Computations Support Spoken Word Recognition: Evidence from MEG and Competitor Priming. Journal of Neuroscience, 41(32), 6919–6932. [PDF]
Tak, Y.W,, Knights E., Henson, R. & Zeidman, P. (2021). Ageing and the Ipsilateral M1 BOLD Response: A Connectivity Study. Brain Sciences, 11, 1130. [PDF]
Tsvetanov, K., Henson, R.N. & Rowe, J.B. (2021). Separating vascular and neuronal effects of age on fMRI BOLD signals. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, B, 376: 20190631. [PDF]
2020
Henson, R.N., Suri, S., Knights, E., Rowe, J.B., Kievit, R.A., Lyall, D.M., Chan, D., Eising, E. & Fisher, S.E. (2020). Effect of APOE polymorphism on cognition and brain in the CamCAN cohort. Brain and Neuroscience Advances, 4, 1-12. [Stage 2 Registered Report].
Kaula, A.J. & Henson, R.N. (2020). Priming Effects on Subsequent Episodic Memory: Testing Attentional Accounts. Journal of Memory and Language, 113, 104106. [PDF]
Basti, A., Nili, H., Hauk, O., Marzetti, L., & Henson, R.N. (2020). Multi-dimensional connectivity: a conceptual and mathematical review. Neuroimage, 221, 117179. [PDF]
Martín-Buro, M.d.C, Wimber, M., Henson, R.N. & Staresina, B. (2020). Alpha rhythms reveal when and where item- and associative memories are retrieved. Journal of Neuroscience, 40, 2510–2518. [PDF]
Gorbach, T., Pudas, S., Bartrés-Faz, D., Brandmaier, A.M., Düzel, S., Henson, R.N., Idland, A-V., Lindenberger, U., Bros, D.M., Mowinckel, A.M., Solé-Padullés, C., Sørensen, Ø., Walhovd, K.B., Watne, L.O., Westerhausen, R., Fjell, A.M. & Nyberg, L. (2020). Longitudinal association between hippocampus atrophy and episodic-memory decline in non-demented APOE-ε4 carriers. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring. [PDF]
Brouwers, L., Cooke, A., Chambers, C.D., Henson, R.N. & Tibon, R. (2020). Evidence for prereg posters as a platform for preregistration. Nature Human Behavior. [PDF]
Borgeest, G., Henson, R., Shafto, M., Samu, D., CamCAN & Kievit, R. (2020). Greater lifestyle engagement is associated with healthy cognitive ageing. PLOS ONE, 15, e0230077. [PDF]
Huang, P., Carlin, J.D., Henson, R.N. & Correia, M.M. (2020). Improved motion correction of submillimetre 7T fMRI time series with boundary-based registration (BBR). Neuroimage, 210, 116542. [PDF]
Tsvetanov, K.A., Henson, R.N.A., Jones, S., Mutsaerts, H-J., Fuhrmann, D., Tyler, L.K., Cam-CAN, & Rowe, J.B. (2020). The effects of age on resting-state BOLD signal variability is explained by cardiovascular and neurovascular factors. Psychophysiology, 13714. [PDF]
Strommer, J.M., Davis, S.W., Henson, R.N., Tyler, L.K., Cam-CAN & Campbell K.L. (2020) Physical activity predicts population-level age-related differences in frontal white matter. The Journals of Gerontology: Biological Sciences, 2, 236–243. [PDF]
Lehmann, B.C.L., Henson, R.N., Geerligs, L., Cam-CAN & White, S.R. (2020). Characterising group-level brain connectivity: A framework using Bayesian exponential random graph models. Neuroimage, 117480. [PDF]
Kocagoncu, E., M.A., Quinn, A., Firouzian, A., Cooper, E., Greve, A., Gunn, R., Green, G., Woolrich, M.W., Henson, R.N., Lovestone, S. & Rowe, J.B. (2020). Tau pathology in early Alzheimer’s disease is linked to selective disruptions in neurophysiological network dynamics. Neurobiology of Aging, 92, 141-152. [PDF]
Wolpe, N., Ingram; J.N., Tsvetanov, K., Henson, R.N., Wolpert, D.M., Cam-CAN & Rowe, J.B. (2020). Age-related reduction in motor adaptation: brain structural correlates and the role of explicit memory. Neurobiology of Aging, 9013-23. [PDF]
Budin-Ljøsne, I., Bodorkos-Friedman, B., Suri, S., Solé-Padullés, C., Düzel, S., Drevon, C.A., Baaré, W.F.C., Mowinckel, A.M., Zsoldos, E., Madsen, K.S., Carver, R.B., Ghisletta, P., Arnesen, M., Bartrés-Faz, D., Brandmaier, A.M., Fjell, A.M., Kvalbein, A., Henson, R.N., Kievit, R., Nawijn, L., Pochet, R., Schnitzler, A., Walhovd, K.B. & Zasiekina, L. (2020). The Global Brain Health Survey: Development of a multi-language survey of public views on brain health. Frontiers in Public Health, section Public Health Education and Promotion, 8, 387. [PDF]
Lee, S-M., Henson, R.N. & Lin, C-Y. (2020). Neural correlates of repetition priming: A coordinate-based meta-analysis of fMRI studies. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, Article 565114. [PDF]