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Congratulations to Josh Buckholtz
Josh has been selected as one of the recipients of the 2007 APA Science Student Council Early Research Awards. This $1,000 award is to recognize and reward an outstanding student research project completed before the dissertation. Congratulations!
November 12, 2007 |
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Journal of Neuroscience Cover
Cover art for the October 31, 2007 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience featured VVRC investigator Anna Roe's image regarding Symposia and Mini-Symposia titled Disparity Channels in Early Vision.
About the cover
Computation of higher-order binocular disparity. When our left and right eye view a three-dimensional scene, each eye receives a slightly different view of the world, owing to the spatial separation of the eyes in the head. These small differences in the images are called binocular disparity and are one source of information about the distance of objects from the observer. Full Story on Cover Image.
Disparity Channels in Early Vision
The past decade has seen a dramatic increase in our knowledge of the neural basis of stereopsis. New cortical areas have been found to represent binocular disparities, new representations of disparity information (e.g., relative disparity signals) have been uncovered, the first topographic maps of disparity have been measured, and the first causal links between neural activity and depth perception have been established. Full Story on article
November 7, 2007 |
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$10 million MacArthur Grant to fund law and neuroscience study
Vanderbilt is taking the lead on a landmark study into the emerging field of law and neuroscience—analyzing the human brain to better understand how the brain’s actions impact the law.
The first-of-its-kind project, which is a collaboration between researchers at Vanderbilt and more than two dozen other universities, is funded by a $10 million dollar grant given by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Vanderbilt professor Owen Jones, who is one of the nation’s few professors of both law and biology, helped procure the grant and was appointed co-director of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Decision-Making, which is one of the three networks within the Law and Neuroscience Project.
My VU • MacArthur Foundation
October 10, 2007 |
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2007 Fine Science Tool Travel Award
Congratulations to Leslie Dowell, Ayan Ghoshal and Mark Burish for being selected to receive the 2007 Fine Science Tool Travel Award. This award provides $500 towards the cost of attending the Society for Neuroscience meeting.
October 1, 2007 |
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When in doubt, brain relies on precise timing to perceive brightness
When in doubt about what we see, our brains fill in the gaps for us by first drawing the borders and then ‘coloring’ in the surface area, new research has found. The research is the first to pinpoint the areas in the brain, and the timing of their activity, responsible for how we see borders and surfaces.
Full Story
August 23, 2007 |
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Claremont's Center for Neuroeconomics Awards First Paper Prize
Claremont Graduate University’s Center for Neuroeconomic Studies has announced its first-ever graduate student prize for outstanding research in neuroeconomics. The $1,000 award went to Joshua W. Buckholtz for his paper, “The Neural Basis of Legal Decision-Making.”
Buckholtz, a student at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said he is thrilled to be a part of the cutting-edge field of neuroeconomics, which he says represents a huge step forward in our understanding of human behavior.
Full Story
August 13, 2007 |
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Grants bolster research into psychiatric disorders
NARSAD: The Mental Health Research Association recently awarded grants for neurobiological research into psychiatric disorders to four researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.
Herbert Meltzer, M.D., professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology and director of the Division of Psychopharmacology, has been selected to receive a Distinguished Investigator Award, which supports highly significant research by established scientists. The grant will provide a one-year grant of $100,000 to advance Meltzer's work in identifying candidate genes associated with schizophrenia.
Full Story
August 2, 2007 |
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Investigator’s vision research lands award
Min Chang, M.D., assistant professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, has received the Robert E. McCormick Scholar Award from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB).
The $55,000 award is part of RPB's Special Scholar program, designed to support outstanding young scientists who are conducting research of unusual significance and promise into the causes, treatment, and prevention of blinding diseases.
Full Story
August 2, 2007 |
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The brain’s role in violence
A man with no prior history of sexual misconduct was caught trying to molest a child. A brain scan found that he had a large tumor pressing on his right frontal cortex. When the tumor was removed, he no longer wanted to molest children. A suicidal man tried to kill himself with a crossbow. When the arrow went into his skull, the damage done to his prefrontal cortex reversed his anti-social tendencies. A surgeon carved his name in his patient’s stomach, but was not legally punished because he was found to have a mental disorder seemingly caused by degeneration of his frontal and anterior temporal cortices.
All these scenarios raise the question, how much do we really know about the criminal mind and should laws and punishments be affected by abnormal brain form or function? If so, how and how much?
Full Story
April 25, 2007 |
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Racing neurons control whether we stop or go
In the children’s game “red light, green light,” the winner is able to stop – and take off running again – more quickly than his or her comrades. New research reveals that a similar race takes place in our brains, with impulse control being the big winner.
“The research provides new insights into how the brain controls movements, which helps explain the impulsivity of people with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder,” said study co-author Jeffrey Schall, the E. Bronson Ingram Professor of Neuroscience. “It also shows how mathematical models can be used to discover how the brain produces thought and action.”
Full Story
April 18, 2007 |
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Steve Hollon receives the Alexander Heard Distinguished Professor Award
The Alexander Heard Distinguished Professor Award was presented to Professor of Psychology Steven D. Hollon for his scientific and clinical contributions to the treatment and prevention of depression.
“Steve has shown cognitive therapy to be particularly effective in reducing the chances for the onset of depression in individuals who are at risk,” Gee said. “His research has influenced psychologists and psychiatrists alike, and has shifted cognitive therapy into acceptance within the psychiatric community.”
Full Story
April 18, 2007 |
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The Brain on the Stand
It sounds like science fiction, but researchers at Vanderbilt University are completing first-of-its-kind research to literally peer inside a person’s mind and watch how the brain thinks about crime.
Vanderbilt professor Owen Jones, who is one of the nation’s few professors of both law and biology, together with associate professor of psychology and neuroscience René Marois, scanned the brain of participants with a highly sensitive technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI. Their goal was to see which parts of the brain were activated when a person was asked to make a decision on crime and punishment.
The New York Times
March 12, 2007 |
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Brain Evolution Studies Go Micro
What makes the human brain unique? Researchers are coming up with new answers to that question as they shift their focus from large-scale brain structures to individual neurons and their complex wiring.
"Brain size is one thing, and brain organization is something else," says neuroscientist Todd Preuss of Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, a leading member of this avant-garde movement in evolutionary neuroanatomy, and a former member of Jon Kaas's lab.
Full Story
March 12, 2007 |
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Vision course helping faculty and students to see across disciplines
Understanding vision is the focus of Vanderbilt researchers across campus – at the College of Arts and Science, the School of Medicine, the School of Engineering and Peabody College of education and human development. However, seeing one another’s work – and helping their students to do so – is a challenge.
A unique class, “The Visual System,” works to build connections among these researchers and students, who are joined by an interest in vision but separated by their disciplines and majors. Anna Roe is leading the course this semester.
Full Story
March 5, 2007 |
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VU can look harder into brain to sharpen care
Mighty imager could help treat depression
A new Vanderbilt institute boasts one of the most powerful pieces of medical imaging equipment in the world, allowing researchers to better understand and treat everything from learning disabilities to addiction.
The centerpiece of the $27 million, 40,000-square-foot Institute of Imaging Sciences is a powerful new device known as the "7 tesla." Dr. Calum Avison, a professor in the institute, says this scanner will allow researchers to see brain activity much more clearly than has previously been possible.
January 29, 2007 |
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Researchers find neural 'bottleneck' thwarts multitasking
Many people think they can safely drive while talking on their cell phone. Vanderbilt neuroscientists Paul E. Dux and René Marois have found that when it comes to handling two things at once, your brain, while fast, isn’t that fast.
“Why is it that with our incredibly complex and sophisticated brains, with 100 billion neurons processing information at rates of up to a thousand times a second, we still have such a crippling inability to do two tasks at once?” asked Marois, an associate professor of psychology. “What is it about our brain that gives us such a hard time at being able to drive and talk on a cell phone simultaneously?”
Vanderbilt Register
A related article March 25, 2007:
Slow Down, Brave Multitasker, and Don’t Read This in Traffic
Think you can juggle the phone, e-mail, instant messages and work? New research shows the limits of multitasking.
The New York Times
January 26, 2007 & March 26, 2007 |
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Top Research Universities in the 2005 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index
The 2005 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, by Academic Analytics, a company owned partially by the State University of New York at Stony Brook, ranks 7,294 individual doctoral programs in 104 disciplines at 354 institutions. It also ranks institutions in broader categories, like the humanities and biological sciences, as well as institutions as a whole.
Vanderbilt University ranked second in Neuroscience on this list.
Full Story
January 11, 2007 |
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