CCNS update

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

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?

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

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?

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

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

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?

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

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)

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

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

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

UCI CCNS Seminar Announcement: Dr. David Eagleman

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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?