Faculty
are listed by Department within their Research Areas,
with descriptions of their active projects.
DEPARTMENT OF BIOMEDICAL
ENGINEERING
HERBERT F. VOIGT
Professor, Biomedical Engineering; Associate Research Professor,
Otolaryngology, School of Medicine; PhD, Johns Hopkins University
Research Interests: Dr. Voigt is currently engaged in experimental and theoretical studies
of the neuronal circuitry in the cochlear nucleus. He uses single-
and multi-unit recording and analysis techniques to study the responses
of neurons and neural nets to acoustic stimulation. Other interests
include brainstem auditory evoked responses and neural modeling
of the cochlear nucleus.
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DEPARTMENT OF COGNITIVE
AND NEURAL SYSTEMS
DANIEL H. BULLOCK
Associate Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and
Psychology; PhD, Stanford University
Research Interests: 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
Research Interests: 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
Research Interests: 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
Research Interests: 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. PhD, University of Connecticut.
Research Interests: 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
Research Interests: Computational neuroscience, space-variant vision, modeling of cortical
map and column systems, spatial representation, computer-aided neuroanatomy,
robotics, and VLSI.
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DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
ALICE CRONIN-GOLOMB
Associate Professor; PhD, California Institute of Technology
Research Interests: Visual perception and cognition in normal aging and age-related
neurodegenerative disorders. I am especially interested in the cortical
mechanisms underlying perceptual deficits in Alzheimer's disease
and related disorders (e.g., Down syndrome, Parkinson's disease),
and in the causal relations between perceptual deficits and cognitive
dysfunction.
HOWARD EICHENBAUM
University Professor and Director of Center for Neuroscience and the Center for Memory and Brain; PhD, University of Michigan.
Research Interests: 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.
MICHAEL HASSELMO
Professor; DPhil, Oxford University
Research Interests: Research in the Hasselmo laboratory focuses on physiological and
computational analysis of the mechanisms of memory function in mammalian
cortical circuits, including the role of activation in muscarinic
acetylcholine receptors and GABAB receptors, and the role of oscillatory
dynamics in the olfactory cortex and hippocampus. Students in the
laboratory have the opportunity to learn a wide range of neuroscience
research techniques, including electrophysiological recording from
brain slice preparations of the hippocampus and piriform cortex,
recordings of evoked potentials and unit activity in anesthetized
and chronic preparations, detailed compartmental biophysical simulations
of cortical circuits, and behavioral studies of cholinergic modulation
in olfactory behavior. Articles from this laboratory have been co-authored
by numerous trainees, many of whom have performed both computational
modeling work and physiological research while working in the laboratory.
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
Research Interests: 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
Research Interests: Conditioning and learning; behavioral pharmacology; drugs as reinforcers
with particular interest in alcohol self-administration.
DAVID I. MOSTOFSKY
Professor; PhD, Boston University
Research Interests: Application of conditioning and learning to behavioral medicine,
particularly problems of epilepsy, pain, and aging; anticonvulsant
effects on behavior; chronic fatigue syndrome.
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.
DAVID SOMERS
Assistant Professor; PhD, Boston University
Research Interests: My research investigates the neural mechanisms of visual perception
and attention. These investigations take place at three levels of
analysis: investigating perceptual function; mapping perceptual
function onto brain structures; and studying the computational architecture
of the underlying neural mechanisms. In pursuing these goals, three
primary techniques are employed: traditional human visual psychophysics;
functional magnetic resonance imaging of human brain activity during
visual perceptual and attentional tasks; and computational modeling
of visual cortical circuitry. Current specific topics of interest
include visual spatial attention, visual motion perception, lightness
perception, and neural computations in primary visual cortex.
CHANTAL E. STERN
Professor of Psychology; DPhil, Oxford University
Research Interests: 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.
TAKEO WATANABE
Associate Professor; PhD, University of Tokyo
Research Interests:Visual perception and attention by means of visual psychophysics
and f-MRI technique. Specific emphasis is effects of attention on
motion processing.
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