UC Irvine Center for Cognitive Neuroscience

CCNS update

2011-10-10T11:38:00.000-07:00

The CCNS has shifted it's web activities to a new location: http://sites.uci.edu/ccns. Please visit for the most up-to-date information on center activities. We hope to see you there!

Nature gives a nod to the TED talks

2009-07-29T11:40:00.001-07:00

This week's Nature suggests that scientists take a lesson from the TED talks (many of which are posted freely on youtube) on how to give engaging talks to a more general audience. The article also gives a nod to developmental and cognitive neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe for her recent engaging presentation. Check it out: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v460/n7255/full/460552a.html

So you want to be famous?

2009-05-04T11:03:00.000-07:00

Scientists, increasingly caught up in some high profile publicity, are now suffering from some of the downsides of notoriety. Apparently the identities of some stem cell researchers are being pilfered to generate bogus Facebook profiles. These "friends" send out invites to colleagues, and so the network grows from this single fake seed. Except it doesn't appear to be happening to one person, but to many. See the article here: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090423/full/news.2009.398.html . Now if we could just get rid of that damn paparazzi at our conferences...

Scrutiny for Stimulus Package

2009-04-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

In case you were wondering why NIH (and the other federal agencies) chose to spend their stimulus package money the way they have, look no further than Congress who is already implementing strict oversight as to how the money has been spent, by whom, and to what extent this "stimulated" the economy.

Has anyone actually seen a dollar of this money yet? It's only April 1!

There are good and bad sides to this. It's good to see increased scrutiny for government debt that is going to keep our grandchildren's grandchildren in hock (to China, I believe). On the other hand, this forces the funding agencies into very restricted avenues for allocating the money (read: keeping the status quo).

Read more on this in today's Nature: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090401/full/458556a.html

Ever wonder how all the sciences fit together?

2009-03-17T10:53:00.000-07:00

Did you ever wonder the the relationship between psychology and microbiology? Or ecology and architecture?

Researchers from Los Alamos have constructed a map of the relationships between different domains of science, based on the chain of clicks that people make as they navigate through academic journals. The maps splits science into different disciplines and shows the connections between them.

See the article here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0004803

My favorite is Figure 5, the "Map of science...". That figure puts Psychology and the social sciences pretty square in the middle of things and highly interconnected with most other domains. Does this reflect some bias of the researchers, the accessibility of some disciplines on the web over others, or the actual relationships in how people do research?

I also noticed that "Brain research" is a little tiny cluster down at the bottom, and "Brain studies" is another little cluster far to the left. Hmm... odd. It leaves me wondering a bit how these disciplines were determined.

Still, very interesting.

Inflow of money for biomedical research

2009-02-25T14:45:00.001-08:00

The 'stimulus package' has been signed into law, and NIH has decided how to dole out the money. Information can be found here: http://www.nih.gov/about/director/02252009statement_arra.htm

In short, those research grants already in line have a much better chance at actually being funded than they would have just a few weeks ago. Existing grants seem to be in even better shape -- they will have the opportunity to be expanded in scope. Both of these mechanisms allow NIH to get the money out fast.

There is also a mechanism being put into place called "Challenge Grants". Currently the main NIH page for info on these grants states "Information Coming Soon" (http://www.nih.gov/about/director/02252009statement_arra.htm). I guess we'll have to wait and see what those are about.

From my perspective, this stimulus package bodes very well for investigators already funded or on the verge of being funded. Anyone not already in the mix isn't likely to benefit.

Eight Problems for the Mirror Neuron Theory of Action Understanding in Monkeys and Humans

2009-02-10T15:06:00.000-08:00

A critical review of the mirror neuron theory of action understanding is now available in the early access section of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience website. The basic conclusion is that there is little or no evidence to support the mirror neuron=action understanding hypothesis and instead there is substantial evidence against it.

More $$ for science?

2009-02-04T15:49:00.000-08:00

The science community is abuzz with reports on the upcoming "stimulus package" (isn't that a dirty word?) providing a shot in the arm for NIH, NSF and other scientific agencies. Everyone is excited.. except, apparently, Nature. There's an article out this week warning scientists against the dangers of too much money, too soon, and without more to back it up.

Worthy concerns, but is it enough to turn down $10 billion dollars? I don't think so.

See the nay-sayer's article here: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090204/full/457649a.html

Lip reading involves two cortical mechanisms

2009-02-02T16:35:00.000-08:00

It is well known that visual speech (lip reading) affects auditory perception of speech. But how? There seem to be two ideas. One idea, dominant among sensory neuroscientists, is that visual speech accesses auditory speech systems via cross sensory integration. The STS is a favorite location in this respect. The other, dominant among speech scientists, particularly those with a motor theory bent, is that visual speech accesses motor representations of the perceived gestures which then influences perception.

A hot-off-the-press (well actually still in press) paper in Neuroscience Letters by Kai Okada and yours truly proposes that both ideas are correct. Specifically, that there are two routes by which visual speech can influence auditory speech, a "direct" and dominant cross sensory route involving the STS, and an "indirect" and less dominant sensory-motor route involving sensory-motor circuits. The goal of our paper was to outline existing evidence in favor of a two mechanism model, and to test one prediction of the model, namely that perceiving visual speech should activate speech related sensory-motor networks, including our favorite area, Spt.

Short version of our findings: as predicted, viewing speech gestures (baseline = non-speech gestures) activates speech-related sensory-motor areas including Spt as defined by a typical sensory-motor task (listen and reproduce speech). We interpret this as evidence for a sensory-motor route through which visual speech can influence heard speech, possibly via some sort of motor-to-sensory prediction mechanism. Viewing speech also activated a much broader set of regions along the STS, which may reflect the more direct cross sensory route.

Have a look and let me know what you think!

K OKADA, G HICKOK (2009). Two cortical mechanisms support the integration of visual and auditory speech: A hypothesis and preliminary data Neuroscience Letters DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2009.01.060

Mirror neurons go mainstream (sort of)

2009-01-29T14:20:00.000-08:00

For better or for worse, mirror neurons are getting some (somewhat) mainstream press: http://www.slate.com/id/2209882/

UCI Center for Cognitive Neuroscience DTI Workshop Announcement

2008-05-22T12:48:00.001-07:00

UCI Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Workshop
DTI Workshop
L. Tugan Muftuler, PhD
Center for Functional Onco-Imaging
University of California, Irvine

Tomorrow, Friday, May 23, 2008
12:00-2:00pm
SSPA 2112

Outline for the Workshop:

1) Brief overview of DTI physics
2) Constructing DTI parameter maps, tractography and their meaning
3) Applications and examples
4) Live demo of how to process DTI data and get DTI maps, reconstruct white matter fiber tracts.

Links to the two free programs that will be demonstrated at Friday's workshop are included below if you are interested in doing some reading them before coming to the workshop.

1) https://www.mristudio.org/
2) http://www.trackvis.org/

CCNS Investigators selected to receive Department of Defense research grant

2008-05-07T12:55:00.000-07:00

CCNS members, Mike D'Zmura (PI), Ramesh Srinivasan, Kourosh Saberi, & Greg Hickok have won one of 34 grants award by the Department of Defense's Multi-disciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program (see DoD announcement below). The project is titled, "Silent Spatialized Communication Among Dispersed Forces," which is a fancy way of saying we are studying how to make mental telepathy a reality. The project team also includes scientists at CMU and University of Maryland. More on this later...

DoD announcement:

64 Universities to Receive $200 Million in Research Funding

The Department of Defense announced today 34 awards to academic institutions to perform multi-disciplinary basic research. The total amount of the awards is expected to be $19.7 million in fiscal 2008 and $200 million over five years. Awards are subject to the successful completion of negotiations between the academic institutions and DoD research offices that will make the awards: the Army Research Office (ARO), the Office of Naval Research (ONR), and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).

The awards are the result of the fiscal year 2008 competition that ARO, ONR, and AFOSR conducted under the DoD Multi-disciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program. The MURI program supports multi-disciplinary basic research in areas of DoD relevance that intersect more than one traditional science and engineering discipline. Therefore, a MURI effort typically involves a team of basic researchers with expertise in a variety of disciplines. For a research area suited to a multi-disciplinary approach, bringing together scientists and engineers with different disciplinary backgrounds can accelerate both basic research progress and transition of research results to application.

To assemble a team with the requisite disciplinary strengths, most MURI efforts involve researchers from multiple academic institutions, as well as multiple academic departments. Based on the proposals selected in the fiscal 2008 competition, a total of 64 academic institutions are expected to participate in the 34 research efforts. Three non-U.S. academic institutions will participate in two of the MURI efforts, but will receive no funding from the MURI program.

The MURI program complements other DoD basic research programs that support traditional, single-investigator university research by supporting multi-disciplinary teams with awards larger and longer in duration than traditional awards. The awards announced today are for a three-year base period with a two-year option contingent upon availability of appropriations and satisfactory research progress. Consequently, MURI awards can provide greater sustained support than single-investigator awards for the education and training of students pursuing advanced degrees in science and engineering fields critical to DoD, as well as for associated infrastructure such as research instrumentation.

The MURI program is highly competitive. ARO, ONR, and AFOSR solicited proposals in 18 topics important to DoD and received a total of 104 proposals. The 34 proposals announced today were selected for funding based on merit review by panels of experts in the pertinent science and engineering fields.

The list of projects selected for fiscal 2008 funding may be found at: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Mar2008/d20080318muri.pdf .

CCNS Seminar: Derek Bickerton

2008-04-02T13:06:00.000-07:00

UCI CCNS Seminar Announcement: Dr. David Eagleman

2008-03-06T11:44:00.001-08:00

UCI Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Seminar Announcement

David M. Eaglman, PhD
Departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry
Baylor College of Medicine

Time and the brain

Most of the actions our brains perform on a daily basis -- such as perceiving, speaking, and driving a car -- require timing on the scale of tens to hundreds of milliseconds. New discoveries in neuroscience are contributing to an emerging picture of how the brain processes, learns, and perceives time. We will demonstrate new temporal illusions in which durations dilate, perceived order of actions and events are reversed, and time is experienced in slow motion. Questions addressed include: Does your brain work in real time, or do you experience a delayed version of the world? How and why does the brain dynamically recalibrate its timing judgments? Does subjective time really slow down during a car accident?

Friday, March 14, 2008
12:00-1:00pm
Herklotz Conference Center

Lunch and beverages will be served, compliments of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience ( http://www.ccns.uci.edu/index.htm). This lecture is part of the Human Brain Mapping Series.

Perception is more than meets the eye...

2008-02-06T09:51:00.000-08:00

As a visual neuroscientist, I am interested in the science of seeing. The act of seeing starts when an image of the surroundings enters the eye. However, there is more to perception than meets the eye. What people see is not simply a translation of the image entering the eye. Thus people interested in visual perception investigate how our brains create what we actually perceive.

To bring a better understanding of visual perception to the general public, I will be speaking in an exhibit on perception at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art:

Take Your Time by Olafur Eliasson

Special Event:
February 07, 2008
6:30 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater

Talk Description
Eliasson’s celebrated projects integrate art, science, and natural phenomena to create multisensory experiences that engage the observer. The first U.S. survey of his work, Take your time: Olafur Eliasson, is currently on view in the fifth-floor galleries. This program features the artist in conversation with exhibition curator Grynsztejn and special guests in an evening of conversation and tabletop experiments about time, space, and perception.

The program for the evening includes:

Kenneth Libbrecht, the head of the physics department at California Institute of Technology, who's been working on the art & science of snowflakes. You can see more here: http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/
and here: http://www.snowcrystals.net/gallery1sm/index.htm.

Alyssa Brewer, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience at UC Irvine; she tracks visual perception (in people & animals) through mapping visual fields in the brain. She'll address how our visual perception works via a view of the ocean. She's here:
http://www.socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/news_item.php?nid=1569.

TJ Clark, art history from UC Berkeley, will look closely at Nicolas Poussin's painting The Sight of Death--paying particular attention to the treatment of reflections in the water surface. You can check out his faculty profile here: http://arthistory.berkeley.edu/faculty/clark.html .

Artist Olafur Eliasson will conclude the evening by looking at after-images in visual perception. More information on his SF MOMA exhibit can be found here: http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=232

Olafur Eliasson, artist
Madeleine Grynsztejn, Pritzker Director, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Seminar Announcement: Melina Uncapher

2008-02-01T11:11:00.000-08:00

UCI Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Seminar Announcement

Melina Uncapher, Ph.D.
Department of Psychology
Stanford University

From experience to memory: characterizing neural correlates of episodic encoding

Date: Monday, February, 4th
Time: 4:00 pm
Place: SSPA 2112

Abstract:

How are the complex neural representations of our experiences translated into those that will endure across time? And what do these transformed neural representations look like? Functional neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI have provided the opportunity to observe changes in the brain that temporally coincide with the birth of these experiential (or 'episodic') memories. Despite such powerful techniques, however, the precise neural and cognitive mechanisms responsible for the formation of memories remain unclear. Efforts to localize these mechanisms should account for at least three parameters of a neural representation of a memory. Namely, such a representation should: 1) reflect the specific processing engendered by the experience, 2) comprise a single (distributed) representation, unifying the multiple constituent elements of the experience, and 3) be enduring across time. In this talk, I will discuss an emerging conceptual framework for how the brain creates episodic memories, based on a number of fMRI studies aimed at addressing the foregoing parameters.

New Program in Cognitive Neuroscience - UC Irvine

2008-01-22T11:53:00.001-08:00

A new doctoral-level program in Cognitive Neuroscience has recently been established here at UC Irvine. Although it is housed in the Department of Cognitive Sciences, it is a multidisciplinary program with participation from faculty members with primary appointments in departments ranging from Neurobiology and Behavior to Radiology. The program is approved to commence with the 2008-2009 academic year. A formal announcement with links to program details will follow. In the meantime, check out the list of participating faculty:

Alyssa Brewer - Human vision, fMRI, neurology
Lawrence Cahill - Memory, Emotion, functional imaging
Nicole Gage - Development, autism, language, MEG
Emily Grossman - Biological motion, fMRI, TMS
Gregory Hickok - Speech/language, fMRI, neuropsychology
Donald Hoffman - Visual perception, EEG, fMRI
Mary-Louise Kean - Language processing, fMRI, neuropsychology
Leonard Kitzes - Mammalian auditory system
Jeffery Krichmar - Memory, vision, Computational neuroscience
David Lyon - Primate visual system
James McGaugh - Neurobiology of memory
Tugan Muftuler - fMRI, cognition
Michael Rugg - Memory, fMRI, EEG
Kourosh Saberi - Hearing, fMRI
John Serences - Attention, vision, fMRI
George Sperling - Vision, memory, attention, fMRI
Ramesh Srinivasan - Consciousness, sensory systems, EEG
Norman Weinberger - Auditory cortex physiology, plasticity, learning, and memory
Fan-Gang Zeng - Hearing, clinical audiology

ERP Boot Camp

2008-01-15T14:26:00.000-08:00

The ERP Boot Camp, an NIMH-funded summer workshop on the ERP
technique, will be held July 7-17 2008 at UC-Davis. Please forward
this announcement to students, postdocs, and faculty who might be
interested in attending.

The ERP Boot Camp is an 11-day introduction to the ERP technique. It
is intended for beginning and intermediate ERP researchers, or people
who are interested in getting started in ERP research. It is designed
for both basic scientists and clinical researchers.

The topics will include:

1) Where do ERPs come from? What do they mean?

2) ERP components

3) The design and interpretation of ERP experiments

4) EEG data acquisition

5) Filtering, artifact rejection, and artifact correction

6) Measuring and analyzing ERP components

7) ERP localization

8) Setting up and running an ERP lab

The Boot Camp consists of lectures on these topics, accompanied by
discussions of classic and contemporary ERP papers and guided lab
activities. It is led by Steve Luck, and the faculty includes many
distinguished ERP researchers from UC Davis and other universities.

Participants at previous Boot Camps have come from around the world
and have ranged from beginning graduate students to full professors.
They have included psychologists, neuroscientists, psychiatrists,
neurologists, and speech pathologists. However, predoctoral students
should not apply unless they will have had at least 6 months of
intensive ERP experience before attending the Boot Camp.

We highly encourage the participation of individuals from
underrepresented groups.

Funding is available from NIMH to defray some or all of the costs of
attending the Boot Camp, but is limited to U.S. citizens and
permanent residents. International participants are encouraged to
apply, but they must obtain their own funding.

For more information about the Boot Camp and the application
procedures, see www.ERPinfo.org

Applications are due on March 31, 2008.

Graduate student reviews in Journal of Neuroscience

2008-01-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

Journal of Neuroscience has a new section (at least, it's new to me) for graduate students and postdocs to write short reviews of recent papers. The format is described as being like a journal club, and as a venue for which junior scientists can "test their analytical and writing skills". Notably, the journal states that overly critical reviews of competitors, or glowing reviews of friend's work will not be considered (although the one I read was pretty glowing). And, they waive the submission fee for this format.

What a great idea. It's wonderful to see a high impact journal take a leadership role in training young scientists.

Prof Little Helper

2007-12-19T13:56:00.000-08:00

Ever need a little pick me up? I certainly do, and in fact, I’m sitting here drinking a cup of coffee as I write. In the wake of the steroids scandal in baseball and the increasing prevalence of drugs in the classroom (e.g. for ADD), an important debate is brewing on the role of pharmaceuticals in our daily life. A recent short article in Nature by Barbara Sahakian and Sharon Morein-Zamir outlines several issues related to the increasing use of stimulants to improve memory and alertness. The most striking point is that when we talk about taking a pill to achieve a cognitive benefit, it seems somehow different from drinking a cup of espresso. Interesting…

At any rate, this article is worth checking out because it calls attention to the blurry line between ‘cheating’ and taking a reasonable step to ensure maximum cognitive capacity. Clearly defining this line is critical as the next generation of school children comes of age in an era of widespread standardized testing: who can afford to fall a little behind or go at their own pace anymore?

CCNS faculty blog article on Scientific American

2007-12-18T08:49:00.000-08:00

Scientific American runs an interesting blog called Mind Matters. It contains news and comments on neuroscience and psychology, with many entries being written by researchers in the field. The most recent entry on mirror neurons was written by CCNS director, Greg Hickok. Click here to check it out!

http://science-community.sciam.com/thread.jspa?threadID=300005636

Congratulations, Kevin!

2007-12-14T12:39:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Dr. Kevin Smith, PhD for successfully defending his thesis "Is there an auditory "where" stream?" Great work!

Interesting upcoming meeting on vision and memory

2007-12-06T12:08:00.000-08:00

COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE OF VISUAL KNOWLEDGE: WHERE VISION MEETS MEMORY

Sponsored by the American Psychological Association, Tufts University, and the Charles River Association for Memory
Dates: Thurs, May 29 - Sat, May 31, 2008
Location: Tufts University in Medford, MA

March 31, 2008: Deadline for early registration

How can people interact appropriately with and understand the world they see around them? Research suggests that prior knowledge about the world influences visual perception at both conscious and non-conscious levels. Emerging research on the neural basis of visual knowledge has begun to synthesize ideas from vision and learning and memory fields.
A group of twelve speakers has been carefully selected from the fields of Cognitive Neuroscience, Cognitive Psychology, Neurobiology, and Computational Modeling to discuss vision and memory, two important fields of Psychology that have proceeded largely in parallel. The goal of the conference is to enable interactions among cognitive psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, and computational modelers who study the neural basis of vision and memory in humans and animals and who develop theories of visual knowledge through modeling. This conference will serve to facilitate not only the cross-pollination of ideas among scientists in each field but also to promote the emergence of a new field of visual knowledge that incorporates key ideas from these established research domains. For more information about this conference, and to register, please go to http://ase.tufts.edu/psychology/conference/

Modularity of perception

2007-12-05T11:07:00.000-08:00

Well over 100 years ago, scientists realized that damage to specific brain regions resulted in specific behavioral deficits. For example, damage to left frontal cortex is often associated with impaired language abilities. Observations of this kind led to the hypothesis that each chunk of cortex performs a specific task (often referred to as the ‘modularity’ hypothesis). In contrast, others suggested that different regions of the cortex are not specialized at all – that all regions participate in all aspects of cognition. Time has taught us that both of these extreme views are probably incorrect. We would quickly run out of space in our head if we dedicated a chunk of cortex to each task that we needed to perform. On the other hand, given the knowledge that damage to certain brain regions leads to very specific behavioral deficits, we must acknowledge that some specialization occurs.

How do we reconcile these two points of view? Recently, we investigated the issue of modularity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (or ‘fMRI’), a method that allows us to indirectly measure neural activity in humans (see article linked below). We focused on visual information processing, since we know quite a bit about the parts of the brain that are responsible for sight. Light comes into the eye, where it is converted into a series of electrical impulses by the retina (a process called ‘transduction’). These electrical impulses are then passed from neuron to neuron until they reach a region of cortex at the very back of the head that is referred to as V1. In V1, neurons respond to simple features in the environment, such as the orientation of edges and different colors. Neurons in V1 then pass along information to other visual areas for further processing. There are actually more than 30 visual areas that are involved in the process of analyzing visual inputs, and each one seems to contribute some unique bit of information to support perception. For example, area V4 – which is a few steps up the hierarchy from V1 – registers information about simple shapes, area MT registers the direction of moving objects, and some later regions register the identity of objects (such as faces).

On the surface, this functional specialization seems to support the ‘modular’ account of brain organization; however, no single visual area can support perception without working in concert with other areas. To give an extreme example, suppose the visual system has a module that only processes information about color. Now, suppose someone suffered damage to their eyes and could no longer transduce light coming into their retina. Obviously, this person wouldn’t be able to perceive colors, even though the color module was perfectly intact. Thus, functionally specialized brain regions cannot operate in isolation; some regions convert light into neural activity, some supply information about edge orientations, some about color, some about motion, and so on. Eventually this information is combined to create a coherent perceptual representation of the surrounding environment.

Even though no single area in isolation can give rise to perception, all areas are clearly not created equal. For example, in our study we examined brain activity in area MT while people watched videos of moving objects. Obviously, the ability of MT neurons to respond to motion depends on input provided by the eyes and by earlier visual areas. However, our experiment found that decisions about the perceived direction of motion are based primarily on the activity of MT neurons, even though activity in other areas is necessary to achieve the final overall percept. According to this account, modularity arises primarily when we need to make a judgment about some attribute of our environment. If we need to know about motion, we query the activity of neurons in MT, if we need to know about color, we might query the activity of neurons in V4, and so on. This viewpoint suggests that most cognitive operations rely on neural activity in a series of distinct cortical areas; however, the ultimate output of the process may be largely mediated by a single specialized area of the brain. One important future challenge will be to determine how more complex cognitive operations (beyond judging the direction of a moving object) are carried out and represented in cortex, and if the same organizational principles apply.

Paper

Left-Brain/Right-Brain: Wrong-Minded

2007-12-03T14:29:00.000-08:00

There’s no shortage of left-brain/right-brain propaganda in pop culture. Browse the shelves at your local bookstore and you’ll find titles like Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future; peruse the booming educational toy market and you’ll find products like Brainy Baby’s “Left Brain” and “Right Brain” DVDs; or just open your ears to the ramblings of a motivational speaker or the chit chat of the office break room, and you’re likely hear some reference to left- and right-brain tendencies. In fact, a quick Google search turns up tens of thousands of documents touting the concept’s usefulness for everything from improving elementary school education or business management strategies, to understanding biblical symbolism, or why men are, and I quote, “beer-guzzling, TV-glued, [and] sex-driven.” You can even test your own left-brain/right-brain tendencies with a multitude of online personality tests. But don’t waste your clicks: if you tend to focus on artistic/holistic/spatial aspects of things you will be labeled “right-brained,” whereas if you lean towards logical/detail-oriented/sequential features, you are “left-brained.” Given its pervasiveness, you may be surprised to learn that most cognitive neuroscientists – scientists who study the relation between mind and brain – cringe when they hear popular references to left- versus right-brain function. To us, hearing someone say, “let’s learn to think with our right hemispheres…” is about as stimulating as fingernails on a chalkboard.

But, you say, isn’t it true that the brain is divided into two hemispheres? Yes it is. And isn’t it the case that the two sides are not identical in function? Yes, of course. Then what’s the problem with all this left-brain/right-brain stuff? Well, let me illustrate by example. Suppose I told you I could read your personality strengths and weaknesses – your self esteem, cautiousness, wit, secretiveness, destructiveness, and so on – simply by measuring the bumps and indentations on your skull. Perhaps you’d be interested in me examining your fiancée (or wish I had before you tied the knot), but more likely you’d think I was blowing smoke. And you’d be right. What I’ve described, in fact, is the 19th century doctrine of phrenology, which held that different brain areas controlled different personality traits, which could be more or less developed. A well-developed trait would command more neural bulk and therefore press on the skull to produce a measurable bump on the head; vise versa for under-developed traits. As ridiculous as it sounds today, phrenology was all the rage in 19th century popular culture, even making its way into political, management, and yes, marriage decisions.

What’s interesting, though, is that while the application of phrenology was seriously misguided, the underlying science was quite legitimate, even accurate in important respects. Indeed, just replace self-esteem, cautiousness, and wit, with motor control, speech, and memory and suddenly phrenology doesn’t seem so ridiculous (well except for that bump-on-the-head thing, but that’s not the core of the theory). In fact, that is precisely what many scientists of the time did with the idea: they ran with the fundamental concept, and ditched the personality trait lunacy.

So what does phrenology have to do with the current left-brain/right-brain mentality? In short, everything. Just like phrenology, the left-right craze is based on a fundamental scientific observation, namely that the two hemispheres are not identical in function, and just like phrenology, the concept has been seriously overblown and misapplied. The fact is, with few exceptions, just about any function or ability you can imagine involves a host of coordinated brain circuits in both hemispheres. The two sides may make somewhat different contributions to these abilities, but these differences generally pale in comparison to differences in function we see between networks within the hemispheres, such as those networks that support visual recognition versus those that enable language comprehension.

The parallels between popular left-brain/right brain dichotomies and phrenology run even deeper, though, as both concepts are based on a more fundamental misconception about brain organization, namely that complex functions are carried out by circumscribed islands of brain tissue. Look at just about any map of brain function and you will find tidy parcellations, like cuts of beef, with labels such as “language,” “memory,” “vision,” and “thought.” But this drastically oversimplifies the picture. For example, there is no “language area.” Instead our ability to use language is supported by a coordinated and widely distributed network of circuits spanning many regions in both hemispheres. These circuits may be individually specialized in function, to be sure, but it is the integrated action of the network that gives rise to our capacity for language. Furthermore, some of these circuits are not slaves to a linguistic taskmaster, but participate in other abilities as well. The same holds true of other functions.

So to say that the left-brain does one thing, and the right-brain does another, is a throw-back to phrenology (and a clumsy one at that!), that fails to recognize the more dynamic, interactive, network-based organization of brain function. So get with the network. Left-brain/right-brain is so 19th century!

Seminar Announcement: Tatiana Pasternak

2007-11-28T12:50:00.000-08:00

Prof. Tatiana Pasternak
Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy
University of Rochester Medical Center

Remembering Visual Motion: Cortical Mechanisms

If you are interested in meeting with Prof. Pasternak during her visit, please contact Jayne at jayne.lee@uci.edu.

Date: Monday, December 3rd
Time: 4:00 pm
Place: SSPA 2112

Abstract:

The work in my lab is aimed at examining the circuitry sub-serving behavioral tasks requiring processing and retaining sensory information. The focus is on the link between cortical areas traditionally associated with processing of visual motion and regions identified with cognitive control of visually guided behaviors. In this talk I will focus on two cortical regions, motion-processing area MT and on prefrontal cortex (PFC) strongly associated with cognitive control. I will present evidence that neurons in both areas actively participate in tasks requiring discrimination, retention and retrieval/comparison of visual motion, and thus, likely to place demands on both sets of neurons. We recorded activity of neurons in MT and in PFC while the monkeys compared the direction or speed of two random-dot stimuli, sample and test, separated by a memory delay. Many PFC neurons showed robust direction selective and speed selective responses to behaviorally relevant motion, most likely originating in MT. Although during the memory delay there were reliable DS signals in both areas, these signals were largely transient, suggesting that individual neurons in neither area carry sustained memory related signals. Such signals, however, appear to be represented at the population level, with 10-30% of neurons representing remembered motion throughout the memory delay. In both areas responses to the test reflect access to the preceding sample direction or speed. This activity arose earlier in MT, suggesting a role in the comparison to the remembered direction. Only in PFC this effect was predictive of the forthcoming decision. These results illustrate unique contributions of MT and PFC neurons to the task. PFC neurons faithfully reflect task-related information about visual motion, and represent decisions that may be based, in part, on MT's comparison between the remembered sample and test.

Relevant papers:

Zaksas D, Pasternak T (2006) Directional Signals in the Prefrontal Cortex and in Area MT during a Working Memory for Visual Motion Task. J Neuroscience 26:11726-11742.

Pasternak T, Greenlee M (2005) Working Memory in Primate Sensory Systems. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 6:97-107.

News Flash: Perceived animacy does not predict neural activity on the posterior STS

2007-11-16T13:54:00.001-08:00

"Visual Perception and Neural Correlates of Novel 'Biological Motion' "
John Pyles, Javier Garcia, Don Hoffman & Emily Grossman
Published in Vision Research, September 2007 issue

The human superior temporal sulcus (STS) has been identified as involved in a number of abilities, including visual perception, auditory scene analysis, multisensory integration, attention, and the understanding of social events. To put it mildly, this is a relatively large and complex region of the brain.

Perceived animacy and perception of biological motion (such as in point-light animations) have both been identified as recruiting neural activity on the posterior extent of the STS. Virtually all studies in both of these areas have used human actions as their stimuli, which confounds visual analysis of the actor with portrayed animacy (virtually guaranteed from these sequences).

John Pyles led this study that measures neural activity using an novel stimulus set. These 'Creatures' are artificially evolved animations that have unusual body structures and gait styles, but nonetheless are readily perceived as animate beings when viewed in locomotion. Using these stimuli, John showed that the posterior STS is not activated as strongly by the Creatures as it is for human actions, suggesting that animacy alone does not predict neural activity in this region.

In contrast to the STS, a number of ventral temporal brain areas responded quite strongly for these novel 'Creatures'. John is now investigating how these brain structures support the recognition of these stimuli.

For more information, see the paper here.

Talk Announcement: Ed Awh

2007-11-15T12:24:00.001-08:00

Dr. Ed Awh
Department of Psychology
University of Oregon, Institute of Neuroscience

Complexity, categories, and capacity in visual working memory

Monday, November 19, 2007
4:00pm
SSPA 2112

Abstract
Several paradigms have converged on a capacity limit of about 3-4
items in visual working memory. This limit exhibits robust
correlations with a broad range of intelligence measures, motivating
an interest in the basic determinants of memory capacity. For
example, performance in the change detection paradigm – a widely used
measure of capacity – declines as stimulus complexity increases. We
have found, however, that increased complexity is typically associated
with increased similarity between the potential sample and test items,
raising the possibility that change detection with complex objects was
limited by the resolution rather than by the number of items
represented in working memory. Indeed, when resolution-based errors
were minimized by reducing sample/test similarity, capacity estimates
for the most complex objects were equivalent to that for the simplest
objects (r = .84). This conclusion was also supported via
measurements of the CDA (contralateral delay activity) waveform, an
event-related potential waveform that provides an online measure of
the number of items maintained during the delay period. CDA amplitude
was equivalent for simple and complex objects. By contrast, a
separate measure of neural activity during the comparison stage of the
task was sensitive to object complexity, though uncorrelated with CDA
amplitude. Thus, visual working memory represents a fixed number of
objects, regardless of complexity. Importantly, analyses of
individual differences suggest that limits in the number and
resolution of representations in working memory represent distinct
aspects of memory ability. Finally, I will present further evidence
that this number/resolution dichotomy is useful for understanding how
perceptual expertise improves memory performance, the relationship
between memory ability and measures of fluid intelligence, and the
factors that influence mnemonic resolution in multi-item displays.

UCI Talks at Psychonomics

2007-11-15T07:47:00.000-08:00

48th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society
Hyatt Regency Hotel, Long Beach California
Thursday Nov. 15th- Sunday Nov. 18th

From George Sperling:
This Friday morning from 8:00a - 10:00a you can hear six papers on attention for free at the 48th Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Long Beach CA, including one by Sperling, Scofield, & Hsu at 9:20a. Lot's more interesting papers to listen to during the next two days. See http://www.psychonomic.org/meet.htm

Talk Announcement: Lisa Jefferies

2007-11-15T07:09:00.000-08:00

Dr. Lisa Jefferies
University of British Columbia
Friday, Nov. 16th 10-11am
SSL 337

Title: Temporal dynamics of attentional control: Assessing the rate of "zooming"

The vast amount of visual information in the world necessitates a selective mechanism that limits processing to objects or locations of interest. Visual attention fulfils this selective function, and may be allocated with varying degrees of success over space and time. We propose a qualitative model that accounts for the modulation of the spatial extent of the focus of attention across time, and test that model in a series of experiments. Specifically, the Attentional Blink (AB) and Lag-1 sparing were employed to test the spatiotemporal modulations of attention. When two targets are presented within a stream of distractor items, identification of the second target is impaired when it follows 100-500 ms after the first target, a phenomenon known as the attentional blink (Raymond, Shapiro & Arnell, 1992). Paradoxically, the second target is sometimes identified quite accurately when it immediately follows the first target (Lag-1 sparing; Potter et al., 1998). Lag-1 sparing always occurs when the two targets appear in the same spatial location (Visser, Bischof, & Di Lollo, 1999), but occurs with spatially separated targets only when the second target falls within the focus of attention (Jefferies et al., 2007). As such, the incidence and magnitude of Lag-1 sparing with spatially separated targets can be used to index changes in the extent of the focus of attention as a function of time. In the current research, we found a progressive, linear transition from Lag-1 sparing to AB deficit as the stimulus-onset-asynchrony (SOA) between the targets was increased. This strongly suggests that the spatial extent of the focus of attention varies linearly over time and that the expanding and shrinking of the focus of attention may be analog in nature. Additional experiments in which factors such as the spatial separation between the streams and the brightness of the targets were manipulated were also conducted, and these experiments provide further tests of the model.

Talk Announcement: Chi-Hung Juan

2007-11-06T10:35:00.000-08:00

Dr. Chi-Hung Juan
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
National Central University, Taiwan

"Probing temporal and causal involvements of frontal eye fields in visual selection and saccade preparation with microstimulation and TMS."
Friday, Nov. 9th
12-1pm
SSPB 2214

The premotor theory of attention suggests that target processing and generation of a saccade to the target are interdependent. Temporally precise microstimulation and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was delivered over the monkey and human frontal eye fields, the area most frequently associated with the premotor theory in association with eye movements, while subjects performed a visually instructed pro-/anti-saccade task. Visual analysis and saccade preparation were clearly separated in time, as indicated by distinct time points of microstimulation and TMS delivery which resulted in elevated saccadic deviation and latencies. These results show that that visual analysis and saccade preparation can be dissociated temporally in the brain, notwithstanding any potential overlap of the anatomical areas involved.

Talk Announcement: Christian Habeck

2007-10-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

Dr. Christian Habeck
Columbia University

"Multivariate approaches to neuroimaging analysis 101"
Friday, November 2, 2007
2:00-3:00pm
SSPA 2112

Abstract
As the clinical and cognitive neurosciences mature, multivariate analysis techniques for neuroimaging data have received increasing attention since they possess some attractive features that cannot be easily realized by the more commonly used univariate, voxel-wise, techniques: (1) multivariate approaches evaluate correlation/covariance of activation across brain regions, rather than proceeding on a voxel-wise basis. Thus, their results can be more easily interpreted as a signature of neural networks. (2) Multivariate techniques also lend themselves better to prospective application of results obtained from the analysis of one dataset to entirely new datasets. Multivariate techniques are thus well placed to provide information about mean differences and correlations with behavior, similarly to univariate approaches, but with potentially greater statistical power and better reproducibility checks. Despite these attractive features, the barrier of entry to the use of multivariate approaches has been high, preventing more widespread application in the community. We have therefore proposed a series of studies comparing multivariate approaches amongst each other and with traditional univariate approaches in didactic reports and comprehensive review papers, using simulated as well as real-world data sets.

In my presentation, I will give a simple mathematical overview of univariate and multivariate approaches. Then I‚ll present two examples of multivariate analysis applied to: (1) an fMRI data set from a study using a delayed-response task, and (2) a clinical data set from a study comparing healthy elderly participants with early Alzheimer‚s disease patients, using resting scans of regional Cerebral Blood Flow. The presentation will close with remaining challenges and directions for the future.

2006-2007 CCNS Event Schedule

2007-10-24T13:11:00.000-07:00

UC Irvine, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
Event Calendar 2007-2008

Please note: The events and times on this calendar are subject to change throughout the year.

Wednesday, October 31, Richard Wise, University College London
1-2pm SSPA 22112

Friday, November 2 Chris Habeck, Columbia University Medical Center
2-3pm SSPA 2112

Friday, November 9 Chi-Hung Juan, National Central University, Taiwan
12-1pm, location TBA

Monday, November 19 Ed Awh, University of Oregon
4-5pm SSPA 2112

Friday, November 30 Quarterly Meeting
2-3pm SSPA 2112

Monday, December 3 Tatiana Pasterak, University of Rochester Medical Center
4-5pm SSPA 2112

Friday, January 25 Lunch Seminar
12-1pm, speaker and location TBA

Friday, February 8 Quarterly Meeting
2-3pm, location TBA

Friday, March 14 David Eagleman, Baylor College of Medicine
12-1pm Herklotz

Friday, April 18 Quarterly Meeting
2-3pm, location TBA

Friday, May 30 Lunch Seminar
12-1pm Speaker and location TBA

CCNS welcomes two new faculty members: Brewer and Krichmar

2007-10-24T13:06:00.000-07:00

CCNS welcomes new members, Alyssa Brewer and Jeffrey Krichmar!

Alyssa Brewer
Assistant Professor, Cognitive Sciences

Brewer is a visual neuroscientist who focuses on the use of brain imaging and behavioral research to gain a better understanding of the organization and functions of the brain related to eyesight. Her research has been widely published in multiple peer-reviewed journals.

Brewer attended Stanford University where she received a B.A in comparative literature, a B.S. in biological science, a Ph.D. in neuroscience, and most recently, an M.D. from the School of Medicine at Stanford. She has spent the last two years working as a postdoctoral research associate at Stanford while finishing her M.D.

Jeffrey Krichmar
Assistant Professor, Cognitive Sciences

Krichmar is a computational neuroscientist whose research interests include biologically plausible models of learning and memory, the effect of neural architecture on neural function, and testing theories of the nervous system with brain-based devices that interact with the environment. Specifically, his work includes the building of robots with simulated nervous systems in order to test theoretical models of brain functions.

He received a B.S. in computer science from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, an M.S. in computer science from George Washington University, and a Ph.D. in computational sciences and informatics from George Mason University, after which he spent 15 years as a software engineer on projects ranging from the PATRIOT Missile System at the Raytheon Corporation to Air Traffic Control for the Federal Systems Division of IBM. He later became an assistant professor at the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University. Most recently, he was a senior research fellow in Theoretical Neurobiology at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego.