Dr Penny Lewis

Photograph of Penny Lewis

Lecturer

NARU (Neuroscience of Aphasia Research Unit)
Room T17, Zochonis Building
Brunswick Street
Manchester
M13 9PL

Google Scholar account (all publications and citation report)

Sleep and Memory Lab
Science Journalism Activities (somewhat out of date...)

Research

Off-line learning during sleep and wakefulness:

My research investigates brain plasticity, focussing specifically on the changes in behaviour and neural activity which occur after initial learning. I’m particularly interested in ‘off-line’ consolidation, or changes occurring while a memory is not being encoded, practiced, or recalled. These can happen both during sleep and during wakefulness. 

Current interests in the lab fall into three main categories:

  • consolidation of procedural skills
  • emotional episodes
  • semantic knowledge

(Please see above for a link to the Sleep and Memory Group).

Methodological Knowledge

  • Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
  • Voxel Based Morphometry (VBM)
  • Polysomnography (PSG) 
  • Behavioural Psychophysics

Teaching

Undergraduate:

  • 1st year: Brain and Behaviour
  • 2nd year: Cognition
  • 3rd year: Sleep and Memory Consolidation

PhD students:

Nora Hennies - studying the impact of sleep upon the formation of new semantic memories

James Cousins - studying the impact of triggered replay during sleep upon overnight memory consolidation

Tia Tsimpanouli - studying sleep, emotional memory and depression

Isabel Hutchinson - studying the impact of direct current stimulation on sleep and memory

Lab Alumni:

Simon Durrant:  Did a 3 year postdoc in the Manchester Sleep and Memory Lab and is now a Lecturer at the University of Lincolin

Scott Cairney:  Did his PhD in the Manchester Sleep and Memory Lab and is now a postdoc at York

Jakke Tamminen:  Did a 1 year postdoc in the Manchester Sleep and Memory Lab and is now a postdoc at Royal Holloway

Collaborators and affiliated staff

The lab collaborates extensively with:
 

Publications

2012

  • Durrant SJ; Cairney S; Lewis PA. (2012). Overnight Consolidation Aids the Transfer of Statistical Knowledge from the Medial Temporal Lobe to the Striatum. Cerebral Cortex, eScholarID:164662 | DOI:10.1093/cercor/bhs244
  • Lewis, P.A.; Meck, W.H. (2012). Does sleep contribute to degeneracy in neural timing? The Psychologist, eScholarID:132140
  • Powell JL, Lewis PA, Dunbar RI, García-Fiñana M, Roberts N. (2012). Orbital prefrontal cortex volume predicts social network size: an imaging study of individual differences in humans. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, eScholarID:155135

2011

  • Cairney, S; Durrant, SJ; Musgrove, H; Lewis PA. (2011). Sleep and environmental context: Interactive effects for memory. Experimental Brain Rsearch, eScholarID:127639 | DOI:10.1007/s00221-011-2808-7
  • Lewis, PA; Cairney, S; Manning, L; Critchley, HD. (2011). The impact of overnight consolidation upon memory for emotional and neutral encoding contexts. eScholarID:123020 | DOI:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.05.009
  • Lewis, PA; Durrant, SD. (2011). Overlapping memory replay during sleep builds cognitve schemata. Trends in Cognitive Neuroscience, eScholarID:127638 | DOI:10.1016/j.tics.2011.06.004
  • Lewis, PA; Rezaie, R; Browne, R; Roberts, N; Dunbar, RIM. (2011). Ventromedial prefrontal volume predicts understanding of others and social network size. NeuroImage, eScholarID:122886 | DOI:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.05.030
  • SJ Durrant; C Taylor; S Cairney; PA Lewis. (2011). Sleep-dependent consolidation of statistical learning. Neuropsychologia, eScholarID:118540 | DOI:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.02.015
  • Wuerger, SM; Parkes, L; Lewis, PA; Crocker-Buque, A; Rutschmann, R; Meyer G. (2011). The role of the premotor cortex in the processing of auditory-visual biological motion. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, eScholarID:136253 | DOI:10.1162/jocn_a_00173

2010

  • Javardi, AH; Walsh, V; Lewis, PA. (2010). Off-line consolidation of procedural skill learning is enhanced by negative emotional content. Experimental Brain Research, eScholarID:94081
  • Lewis, PA; Couch, T; Walker, MP. (2010). Keeping time in your sleep: Overnight consolidation of temporal rhythm. Neuropsychologia, eScholarID:92935 | DOI:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.10.025
  • Powell JL, Lewis PA, Dunbar RI, García-Fiñana M, Roberts N. (2010). Orbital prefrontal cortex volume correlates with social cognitive competence. Neuropsychologia, 48(12), 3554-3562. eScholarID:92934 | DOI:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2010.08.004

2009

  • Durrant, S; Lewis, PA. (2009). Consolidation: tracking transfer with functional connectivity. Current Biology, 19, R860-R862. eScholarID:29962 | DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2009.08.019
  • Lewis, PA; Miall, RC. (2009). The precision in temporal judgement: milliseconds to many minutes and beyond. Phil Trans Royal Soc, 364, 1897-1905. eScholarID:29759 | DOI:10.1098/rstb.2009.0020

2007

  • Critchley H, Lewis PA, Orth M, Josephs O, Deichmann R, Trimble M, Dolan R. (2007). Vagus nerve stimulation for treatment-resistant depression: behavioral and neural effects on encoding negative material. Psychosom Med, 69( 1), 17-22. eScholarID:1d32253
  • Holland P, Lewis PA. (2007). Emotional memory: selective enhancement by sleep. Curr Biol, 17( 5), R179-81. eScholarID:1d31888
  • Lewis PA, Critchley H, Rotshtein P, Dolan R. (2007). Neural correlates of processing valence and arousal in affective words. Cereb Cortex, 17( 3), 742-8. eScholarID:1d31994

2006

  • Lewis PA, Miall R. (2006). A right hemispheric prefrontal system for cognitive time measurement. Behav Processes, 71( 2-3), 226-34. eScholarID:1d31791
  • Lewis PA, Miall R. (2006). Remembering the time: a continuous clock. Trends Cogn Sci, 10( 9), 401-6. eScholarID:1d31889

2005

  • Lewis PA, Critchley H, Smith A, Dolan R. (2005). Brain mechanisms for mood congruent memory facilitation. Neuroimage, 25( 4), 1214-23. eScholarID:1d32072
  • Lewis PA, Walsh V. (2005). Time perception: components of the brain's clock. Curr Biol, 15( 10), R389-91. eScholarID:1d31790

2004

  • Lewis PA, Wing A, Pope P, Praamstra P, Miall R. (2004). Brain activity correlates differentially with increasing temporal complexity of rhythms during initialisation, synchronisation, and continuation phases of paced finger tapping. Neuropsychologia, 42( 10), 1301-12. eScholarID:1d32254

2003

  • Lewis PA, Critchley H. (2003). Mood-dependent memory. Trends Cogn Sci, 7( 10), 431-3. eScholarID:1d31890
  • Lewis PA, Miall R, Daan S, Kacelnik A. (2003). Interval timing in mice does not rely upon the circadian pacemaker. Neurosci Lett, 348( 3), 131-4. eScholarID:1d32566
  • Lewis PA, Miall R. (2003). Brain activation patterns during measurement of sub- and supra-second intervals. Neuropsychologia, 41( 12), 1583-92. eScholarID:1d32565
  • Lewis PA, Miall R. (2003). Distinct systems for automatic and cognitively controlled time measurement: evidence from neuroimaging. Curr Opin Neurobiol, 13( 2), 250-5. eScholarID:1d31854

2002

  • Lewis PA, Miall R. (2002). Brain activity during non-automatic motor production of discrete multi-second intervals. Neuroreport, 13( 14), 1731-5. eScholarID:1d32071
  • Lewis PA, Walsh V. (2002). Neuropsychology: time out of mind. Curr Biol, 12( 1), R9-11. eScholarID:1d31855
  • Lewis, PA. (2002). Finding the timer. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6, 195-196. eScholarID:29812 | DOI:10.1016/S1364-6613(02)01906-X
  • Lewis, PA. (2002). Musical Minds. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6, 364-366. eScholarID:29834 | DOI:10.1016/S1364-6613(02)01955-1

Research projects