Cognitive Neuroscience Concentration
Overview
The goal of the cognitive neuroscience concentration is to train scientists with a strong foundation in behavioral research that is complemented by an understanding of human brain function and neuroscientific methods. This concentration is available to all graduate students in our department. Students who choose to pursue a concentration in Cognitive Neuroscience participate fully in one or more of the training programs within the Psychology department, as well as a joint training program between the Psychology department at Pittsburgh and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC).
Created in 1994, the CNBC is dedicated to the study of the neural basis of cognitive processes, including learning and memory, language and thought, perception, attention, and affect. The CNBC consists of faculty, students, and research scientists whose work relates to the mission stated above. All faculty have appointments in one or more coordinating departments. These include the Departments of Biological Sciences, Computer Science, Psychology and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, and the Departments of Mathematics, Neurobiology, Neurology, Neuroscience, Psychiatry, and Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.
Students in the CNBC training program combine intensive training in their chosen specialty with broad exposure to other disciplines that touch on neural computation and problems of higher brain function. This broad exposure is accomplished through a set of four courses in computational modeling, neurophysiology, neuroanatomy and systems neuroscience, and cognitive neuroscience.
In addition, the CNBC provides an intellectually vibrant environment in which students and faculty from different disciplines participate in collaborative research projects, attend CNBC sponsored colloquia by invited speakers, and engage in informal discussions during bi-weekly seminars, student-sponsored "brain bags," and an annual retreat. The intellectual resources of the CNBC are complemented by access to a wide range of physical resources, including Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Magnetoencephalograpy (MEG) scanners for functional brain imaging, neurophysiology laboratories for recording from behaving animals, high performance computing facilities, and patient populations for neuropsychological studies.
Finally, students in the CNBC receive travel support for five years, a personal computer of their choice, and in some cases a 1-2 year research fellowship through one of several training grants (which include a Behavioral Brain Research training program that is especially designed for graduate students affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon Psychology departments).
The interdisciplinary quality of the CNBC is captured in the diverse interests and methodological skills of the faculty associated with the Cognitive Neuroscience Concentration. Students working with these faculty members have research projects that combine one or more of the following methodologies: analysis of normal behavior and the effects of brain damage and disorder, functional brain imaging studies, event-related potential research, genetic analysis, and computational modeling and assessment. Clinical applications include major efforts to understand schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, depression, healthy aging, and disorders of language processing due to acquired or developmental disorders.
Participating Faculty
- James Becker, Ph.D. Human memory disorders, the neuroanatomical damage which produces human memory disorders
- Julie Fiez, Ph.D. Behavioral and neuroimaging investigations of: 1) language, reading, and working memory, 2) reward and motivation, and 3) learning and plasticity
- Beatriz Luna, Ph.D. changes in brain function that underlie the development of response inhibition and working memory, plasticity of brain function in childhood epilepsy, neurophysiology of autism and schizophrenia
- Chuck Perfetti, Ph.D. Language and reading processes, relations between contexts and linguistic structures in parsing and comprehension, role of implicit speech processes in reading across different writing systems, individual differences in reading ability, learning from texts, with an emphasis on learning and reasoning about history texts
- Erik Reichle, Ph.D. Reading, neurocognitive imaging, eye movements, computational modeling, word identification
- Walter Schneider, Ph.D. Cognitive neuroscience, connectionist and physiological models of cognition, attention and automaticity, skill acquisition
- Greg J. Siegle, Ph.D. physiological and neuroimaging investigation of emotional information processing and interactions between emotion and cognition in healthy individuals and individuals who are clinically depressed, Computational neural network modeling of interactions of emotion and cognition, and their application to affective psychopathology
- Natasha Tokowicz, Ph.D. Adult second language learning, bilingualism, within and across-language lexical ambiguity, semantic representations within and across languages
- Mark Wheeler, Ph.D. Memory, episodic memory, recognition, attention, executive control
Special Application Procedures
Students interested in participating in the Cognitive Neuroscience Concentration must apply to the CNBC training program and to the Department of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.
Application to the Department of Psychology is made by completing the standard departmental application, and designating "Cognitive Neuroscience Concentration" as a desired program choice. Application to the CNBC training program is made by completing a short application form and a brief (2 page) essay.
The following additional materials will be forwarded to the CNBC from the Department of Psychology if not supplied by the student directly: undergraduate transcript, GRE scores, and three letters of recommendation. Sending copies of these items direct to the CNBC admissions office will speed up processing of the application.
Both applications must be received by December 1.