Faculty are listed by Department within their Research Areas,
with descriptions of their active projects.

DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY

JELLE ATEMA
Professor of Biology; PhD, University of Michigan

Research Interests:Sensory Neurobiology and Behavioral Ecology: Spectral and temporal filter properties of chemoreceptor cells in different receptor organs of the lobster. High resolution measurement and models of turbulent submarine odor plumes. Chemosensory orientation behavior: "Eddy-scale chemotaxis". "Robo-lobster", autonomous underwater vehicle designed to explore neural models of chemotaxis and to locate odor and pollution sources. Chemical signals in lobster courtship behavior. Laboratory and field studies. Evolution of brains and complex behavior of invertebrates. Funded by grants from NSF, NIH. Research facilities at the Boston University Marine Program, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole.

MICHAEL J. BAUM
Professor of Biology; PhD, McGill University

Research Interests: I study the steroidal control of brain and behavioral sexual differentiation in ferrets and mice. This work employs immunocytochemistry, computer-assisted imaging analysis, radioimmunoassay of sex steroids and reproductively relevant neuropeptides, intra-cranial administration of neurotoxins, neural tract tracing compounds and other pharmacological agents, as well as the observation and registration of reproductive and olfactory behaviors.

VINCENT E. DIONNE
Professor of Biology; PhD, University of Arizona

Research Interests:Chemosensory physiology: research on the cellular mechanisms underlying the detection and discrimination of odors by olfactory receptor neurons in vertebrates. Electrophysiological, anatomical, histochemical, and molecular biological techniques are used in the laboratory.

TIM GARDNER, Assistant Professor of Biology; Ph.D.- Rockefeller University, NY.
Research Interests: The Gardner lab studies the assembly and function of neural circuits, focusing on the well-defined pathways for vocal learning in songbirds. A first priority is the quantitative description of vocal behavior. The lab also explores physiological recordings and circuit perturbations in singing birds, in-vivo imaging, and theoretical models for self-assembly of neural systems.

JAMES TRANIELLO
Professor of Biology; PhD, Harvard University

Research Interests:The remarkable evolutionary and ecological success of the ants is often attributed to their social organization, at the heart of which is the division of labor among workers according to their size and age. We study how behavioral variation in worker castes is related to neural polymorphism in the brain.

Darwin's sense of wonder was excited by the ant brain's capability of ”extraordinary mental activity with an extremely small absolute mass of nervous matter." We feel the same way. Our research concerns the comparative evolutionary neuroanatomy of caste and division of labor in ants and the neurochemistry of behavioral development. We use immunohistochemistry, confocal microscopy, neurohistology and image analysis to quantify age- and size-related changes in the compartments of the brain (the antennal and optic lobes and the mushroom bodies, which are the centers of sensory integration and learning) that control social behavior. Our integrative studies connect sociobiology, ecology, and neuroscience to understand the selective forces that lead to the evolution of brain structure and how a miniscule brain meets the demands of processing complex information at the level of the individual and society as a whole.

MATT WACHOWIAK
Assistant Professor of Biology; PhD, University of Florida

Research Interests: My research focuses on how the nervous system encodes and processes information about odors. Odor coding starts with olfactory receptor neurons in the nose, where odor molecules activate specific combinations of receptor neurons. Which receptor neurons are activated depends on the chemical structure and concentration of the odor. We are interested in understanding how the pattern of receptor neuron activity encodes information about an odor as this information is transmitted to the brain, and also how this code is transformed as the information passes through different stages of processing in the brain.

ERIC WIDMAIER
Associate Professor of Biology; PhD, University of California at
San Francisco

Research Interests:The role of glucose and fatty acids in regulation of neuroendocrine activity; the role of Neuropeptide Y in the control of diurnal and seasonal feeding. A combined approach using the tools of cell biology, biochemistry, and whole animal studies is used to study these problems.

AYAKO YAMAGUCHI
Assistant Professor of Biology; PhD, University of California at Davis

Research Interests: We study how the CNS generate sexually differentiated behavior using vocalization of African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis) as a model. We use behavioral, electrophysiological, anatomical, histochemical, and molecular biological techniques to understand how the central vocal pathways differ between males and females, and how these differences arise in response to steroid hormones.

> Top of Page

DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING

CHRISTOPHER PASSAGLIA
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering; PhD, Syracuse University

Dr. Passaglia studies how the eye transforms visual images into the neural signals it transmits to the brain and how target neurons in the brain process these signals. His laboratory is presently focused on quantitatively describing the receptive field properties of mammalian retinal ganglion cells in normal and diseased states and on building computer models that accurately simulate the retinal output under natural viewing conditions. Another interest of the lab is to characterize the response properties of invertebrate visual neurons, particularly those of horseshoe crabs, which mediate comparatively simple visually-guided behaviors. His research uses electrophysiological, anatomical, computational, and behavioral methods.

KAMAL SEN
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering; PhD, Brandeis University

Our laboratory studies the neural coding of complex vocal communication sounds in songbirds, a model system that shows striking parallels to humans. We use electrophysiological techniques to record neural responses. Theoretical methods from areas such as statistical signal processing, systems theory, probability theory, and pattern recognition are applied to characterize how neurons in the brain encode natural sounds. We also use computational modeling to understand the processing of natural sounds, both at the single neuron and the network level.

> Top of Page

DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE AND NEURAL SYSTEMS

DANIEL H. BULLOCK
Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and
Psychology; PhD, Stanford University

Integrated neural network models of sensory-motor learning, planning and control. These neural network models encompass circuits in cortex, basal ganglia, cerebellum, and the spinal cord. Our studies focus on step-by-step reconstruction of known brain and CNS circuits within the context of a quantitative functional theory of adaptive behavior and cognition. Concepts and hypotheses are rigorously assessed by comprehensive computer simulations of neural circuits that are specified as systems of ordinary differential equations.

GAIL A. CARPENTER
Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and
Mathematics; PhD, University of Wisconsin

Development of neural network models for self-organizing category learning and pattern recognition; neural mechanisms of synaptic transmission and adaptation; and systems that incorporate these models into neural networks architectures for incremental supervised learning and prediction. Also: Neural models of vision, nerve impulse generation (Hodgkin-Huxley equations), transmitter dynamics, and biological rhythms.

MICHAEL A. COHEN
Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and
Computer Science; PhD, Harvard University

Neural network models of speech and language processing. Stability and instability of dynamical systems underlying neural networks. Models of memory, language comprehension, and auditory psychoacoustics, statistical neural network models of depression, and cardiovascular control.

STEPHEN GROSSBERG
Wang Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems,
Professor of Mathematics, Psychology, and Biomedical Engineering;
Director, Center for Adaptive Systems; Chairman, Department of
Cognitive and Neural Systems; PhD, Rockefeller University

Development of neural models of learning, recognition, memory, vision, audition, speech, cognition, reinforcement, attention, adaptive sensory-motor control, and biological rhythms. Systematic analysis and prediction of behavioral and brain data in both normal and clinical patients. Applications to outstanding technological problems.

ENNIO MINGOLLA
Chair and Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and Psychology;Co-Director, Center for Excellence in Learning in Education, Science, and Technology. Ph.D, University of Connecticut

Theoretical research includes design of neural network architectures for visual perception, including segmentation, completion, and grouping of static and moving boundaries, textures, and shaded regions. Empirical research includes psychophysical studies of human perception of visual motion, visual search, surface perception and object recognition.

ERIC L. SCHWARTZ
Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems, Electrical and
Computer Systems Engineering, and Anatomy and
Neurobiology; PhD, Columbia University

Computational neuroscience, space-variant vision, modeling of cortical map and column systems, spatial representation, computer aided neuroanatomy, robotics, and VLSI.

> Top of Page

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

JAMES A. CHERRY
Assistant Professor; PhD, North Carolina State University

Molecular neurobiology: molecular mechanisms of learning, memory, and olfaction in rodents; transgenic mouse models of behavior.

HOWARD EICHENBAUM
University Professor and Director of Center for Neuroscience and the Center for Memory and Brain; PhD, University of Michigan.

My research involves explorations of the neural circuitry that mediates our capacities for cognition and memory. In particular, work in my lab focuses on the contributions of a system of brain structures including the hippocampus and cerebral cortex. Our approach to understanding this system entails a combination of neuropsychological testing to analyze how memory breaks down after selective damage to components of this system and electrophysiological recording to characterize how experiences are encoded by the activity patterns of neurons in these brain structures.

KATHLEEN M. KANTAK
Professor; PhD, Syracuse University

Research Interests: My research uses animal models to conduct translational research related to drug addiction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and their co-morbidity. Using intravenous drug self-administration procedures in rats, my lab investigates how multiple memory systems regulate drug-seeking and drug-taking behavior as well as how drug exposure influences the neurocognitive functioning of multiple memory systems. In addition, we investigate how cognitive-enhancing therapeutics may be useful to facilitate extinction learning for cues predictive of drug availability and if such treatment can attenuate drug relapse. Other studies focus on evaluating neurocognitive deficits of the frontal and medial temporal lobes as well as the striatum in rats with an ADHD phenotype and their response to medications. We have begun investigating comorbidity between ADHD and vulnerability to drug addiction and to determine if medications (stimulant and non-stimulant) increase or decrease this vulnerability. In the context of all this research, I collaborate with other investigators to conduct parallel studies in non-human primates, to perform image analysis or to understand the neurochemical and molecular correlates of these disorders and their treatment.

JACQUELINE A. LIEDERMAN
Associate Professor; PhD, University of Rochester

Mechanisms underlying interhemispheric collaboration during information processing; endocrinological and immunological mechanisms underlying male prevalence for neurodevelopmental disorders and lefthandedness; the effects of environmental estrogens on the developing brain.

HENRY MARCUCELLA
Professor; PhD, Boston University

Conditioning and learning; behavioral pharmacology; drugs as reinforcers with particular interest in alcohol self-administration.

MICHELE RUCCI
Associate Professor of Psychology; PhD, Scuola Superiore S. Anna, Pisa, Italy.

Research Interests: Research in my laboratory (The Active Perception Lab) focuses on active perception in biological and artificial systems. Experimental and theoretical approaches are combined to examine motor influences on perceptual performance and on the encoding of sensory information in the brain. Robots replicating the sensory-motor strategies of various species are studied in an effort to develop efficient machine perception systems. Research in the Active Perception Laboratory has raised specific hypotheses regarding the influences of eye movements during visual development and in the neural encoding of visual information. This research has also demonstrated the involvement of fixational eye movements in fine spatial vision, produced a new system for experimental studies of visual neuroscience, and led to the development of robots directly controlled by models of the brain.

CHANTAL E. STERN
Professor of Psychology; DPhil, Oxford University

Research in the Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory at Boston University is focused on using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study memory and cognition. The long-term objective of the laboratory is to elucidate the neural substrates underlying memory processing in the normal human brain, and to extend these finding to study changes in memory functioning in normal aging, Alzheimer's disease, and AIDS-related dementia. An additional goal is to integrate the fMRI studies of human memory processing with knowledge from animal models and computational modeling (Eichenbaum and Hasselmo laboratories). Recent work includes fMRI studies of prefrontal and medial temporal lobe interactions in picture and word encoding, examining the role of prefrontal and medial temporal lobe contributions to working memory for spatial, non-spatial, and complex visual stimuli, and studies combining cognitive, physiological, and morphometric methods to examine changes associated with aging. Imaging is carried out at the Massachusetts General Hospital-NMR Center. Students and postdoctoral fellows are provided with training in cognitive neuroscience, neuroanatomy, block design and event-related fMRI, cortical inflation and flattening techniques, and cortical parcellation techniques. In 1999, installation of MEG facilities at the MGH-NMR Center further enhanced available research opportunities.
> Top of Page