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Center for the Behavioral Neurosciences
$7 million gift to help MED researchers draw connections between brain and behavior
By Brian Fitzgerald
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Jack Spivack |
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Scientists' understanding of how the brain affects behavior has grown dramatically over the past decade. And thanks to a recent gift from Jack Spivack, there will be even further opportunity for advances in the study of behavioral neurosciences at BU's School of Medicine.
Spivack, vice president of DuPont Row Associates, a real estate firm in Washington, D.C., has established a trust through which he will name the school's new Center for the Behavioral Neurosciences with a testamentary gift of more than $7 million.
The center will build on what is both long-standing and emerging expertise at MED. “We have developed major research strengths in the behavioral neurosciences,” says BU President ad interim Aram Chobanian, former MED dean and Medical Campus provost. “We are also developing a strong research infrastructure for studies in this area, and are putting together an entity that will give researchers from different disciplines in the behavioral neurosciences opportunities to interact and collaborate in studies of how behavior is determined.”
Chobanian says that several research centers are now probing the structural, chemical, and neurological changes in the brain, but few are looking specifically at how the processes influence actual behavior. “The goal is to take what we know from the standpoint of brain chemistry, structure, pathology, and function,” he says, “and combine that with research on the external manifestations.”
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Helen Tager-Flusberg, codirector of the Autism Research Center of Excellence, a MED professor of anatomy and neurobiology, and a CAS psychology professor, says that the new Center for Behavioral Neurosciences will foster interactions with fellow researchers and expand the scope of research at the School of Medicine. Photo by Vernon Doucette |
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The School of Medicine has, for example, an Alzheimer's Disease Center and an Autism Research Center of Excellence, both funded by the National Institutes of Health. Helen Tager-Flusberg, codirector of the Autism Research Center of Excellence and a MED professor of anatomy and neurobiology, says that the new center will provide an umbrella under which she and fellow researchers “can better learn from the advances that are made in each of the other areas of behavioral neurosciences. Furthermore, it will foster significant interactions that will by necessity broaden the scope of behavioral neuroscience research at BUSM. It will bring a productive lifespan perspective, from studies of behavioral disorders such as autism to aging and Alzheimer's disease.”
As an example of the potential for cross fertilization of ideas in the behavioral neurosciences, Tager-Flusberg, who is also a CAS psychology professor, says that autism researchers “focus extensively on social-affective neuroscience, yet little has been done in the field of Alzheimer's at BU on social-affective changes with disease. We could develop collaborations that would use our behavioral measures, and investigate common brain regions and pathways using imaging methods.”
Indeed, BU recently established the Center for Biomedical Imaging, which has new generation magnetic resonance imaging equipment that provides investigators with the opportunity to study intricate aspects of brain function.
Tager-Flusberg also points out that in Alzheimer's research at BU, there is a strong focus on memory deficits. “But little work has been done in autism in this area,” she says. “Again, similar methods and paradigms could be used, with modifications.”
Chobanian says that other areas in the behavioral neurosciences will benefit from the new center. “We also have the Movement Disorder and Parkinson's Disease Center,” he says. “And there are centers on alcohol and drug addictions, with the goals of finding the underlying causes of addictions and developing new therapies. Another area in which we're getting stronger are the studies of malnutrition and drugs on brain development, both in the maternal environment and in infants and young children.”
A founding member of the School of Medicine's board of visitors, Spivak has long been interested in how human behavior is influenced by physiological changes in the developing brain. “I'm convinced that the early, formative years of a child's life profoundly determine behavior in later years,” he says, noting that recent groundbreaking studies in neuroscience are allowing scientists to examine structural and chemical changes in children's brains. “I believe that it's vital for researchers to study how neurological pathways are laid down in infancy and early childhood,” he says.
Spivack is founder, organizer, and secretary of Georgetown Computer Systems, Inc., and founder, organizer, and former director of the Vie de France Corporation. He was a value engineer for the U.S. Department of Defense. He was also a director of value analysis for the Litton Corporation, and serves on the education committee of the Society of American Value Engineers.
Calling behavioral neurosciences “one of the fastest growing fields of study,” Chobanian says that Spivack's gift “fits in very closely with many of the goals we are trying to accomplish at the School of Medicine. Jack Spivack has been a longtime friend, and we are most appreciative of his extraordinary generosity.”
19
March 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations