Neuroscience interests in UW Psychology
Modern psychology is increasingly becoming a biological science. One of the defining features of UW Psychology is that we have faculty in every area of our department who are interested in the biological substrate of behavior. Although individual research programs may be identified as cognitive neuroscience, behavioral neuroscience, affective neuroscience, developmental neuroscience, or social neuroscience, as a collective group we are interested in the multitude of influences on adaptive behavior and in integrating genetic, systems, evolutionary, and behavior approaches to neuroscience. Campus-wide, UW Psychology serves as the bridge that links the biological- and social-science approaches to the study of behavior.
Although we share interest in an integrative approach to the study of neuroscience and adaptive behavior, UW Psychology faculty are taking neuroscience approaches to many major areas of experimental and clinical psychology.
Imaging Facilities - UW Psychology has partnered with the Department of Radiology to develop a 3-Tesla MRI scanner for use in human neuro-imaging studies that is now operational at the nearby South Lake Union facility. Another research-dedicated 3T scanner will come online in December 2006 on South Campus. In addition, UW Psychology has just been awarded a $2M grant from NSF to deploy a third MRI scanner, to be co-located on South Campus.
Electrophysiology Research Facility
UW Psychology is expanding neuroscience
research capabilities through a major investment
in new equipment and staff support.
Neuroscience serves as the foundation for understanding
the mechanisms of human behavior
and UW Psychology has long been a leader
in neuroscience research. As a department we
recognize the need to foster new neuroscience
research initiatives, expand our undergraduate
and graduate training in neuroscience, and
support interdisciplinary collaborations in neuroscience
research. With these goals in mind,
the department is establishing a new Electrophysiology
Research Facility (ERF).
The ERF will house state-of-the-art EEG recording
equipment that will allow researchers to
record brain electrical activity at the scalp. This
is a powerful technique for understanding
how mental processes occur in the brain. EEG
involves the placement of electrodes (anywhere
from a dozen to 128) across the surface
of the scalp, then amplifying and recording
the underlying electrical signals. The recorded
brain activity can then be correlated with
mental tasks performed by the subject, ranging
from simple perceptual tasks to complex
memory and language processing. In addition
to understanding brain processing in healthy
individuals, the technique can be applied to
clinical populations to understand the mechanisms
underlying mental dysfunctions.
One particular advantage of EEG measurements
is that they provide very precise timing
of brain activity related to mental events. The
measure nicely complements the spatial resolution
obtained with fMRI measurements. One
of the central goals of the ERF will be integrating
the measurements obtained from EEG with
MRI measurements to obtain a detailed temporal
and spatial characterization of brain processes
underlying complex human behavior.
Another way to view brain responses with sufficiently
sophisticated temporal resolution is to
link neural function to cognitive
processes to record the evoked
response of large number of
neurons to specific stimuli or
task operations. These types of
responses are referred to Evoked
Response Potentials (ERP). An
example is shown in the adjacent
figure. With this measure, subtle
changes in cognitive processing
or attention result in detectable changes in
the ERP. Mapping such ERPs across the brain
have led to new insights into (e.g.) language
processing by the brain
Neurobiology & Behavior Graduate Program – UW Psychology is a founding partner in this program that involves over 50 faculty from more than 12 different departments at UW. Psychology faculty teach and mentor graduate students in this program. Admission to the Neurobiology & Behavior program is handled outside of UW Psychology, but prospective graduate students may apply simultaneously to a program area within UW Psychology. UW Psychology graduate students have access to the classes, talks, and seminars organized by the program. Prospective graduate students should contact participating UW Psychology faculty for more information:
- Ilene Bernstein, Behavioral Neuroscience
- Eliot Brenowitz, Animal Behavior
- Steven Buck, Cognition/Perception and Behavioral Neuroscience
- Ellen Covey, Behavioral Neuroscience
- Jaime Diaz, Behavioral Neuroscience
- Jeansok Kim, Behavioral Neuroscience
- Sheri Mizumori, Behavioral Neuroscience
- Scott Murray, Cognition/Perception
- Sean O’Donnell, Animal Behavior
- Jaime Olavarria, Behavioral Neuroscience
- Lee Osterhout, Cognition/Perception
- John Palmer, Cognition/Perception
- Joe Sisneros, Animal Behavior