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The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) was founded in 1425 and is the oldest Catholic university in the world and the oldest of the Low Countries. At the KUL, both fundamental and applied research is conducted in all academic disciplines. In the past few years in particular, the University's research efforts and output have increased considerably, both quantitatively and qualitatively, thus positioning Leuven at the forefront of European universities. The 'Laboratorium voor Neuro- en Psychofysiologie' of the KUL Medical School (directors P Janssen, G.A. Orban, W Vanduffel, M Van Hulle and R Vogels) is an interdisciplinary group, investigating the neural processes in the visual cortex, in particular the extrastriate or higher order cortex, of human and non-primates. The group counts 35 researchers and technicians and over 250 publications in international journals, including Science, Nature, Neuron, Nature Neuroscience, PNAS and J. Neuroscience. The main tools are single cell recordings, human and awake monkey fMRI, modelling and computational studies, lesion and inactivation studies, behavioural studies and psychophysics. The group is unique in that through awake monkey fMRI it can directly relate human imaging to single cell recordings in monkeys.Topics of present interest in visual processing include 2D shape and 3D shape processing, visuomotor control and actions (grasping). Finally at the technical level, the group investigates the relationship between neural activity and fMRI signals, homologies between humans and non-human primates, novel brain imaging and analysis tools, combination of brain imaging with invasive methods for establishing causal relationships.
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