This is a diversity administrative supplement that will fund a research assistant with background in applied Math to participate in our NIMH project, investigating the maturation of response inhibition between the time of adolescence and adulthood. The supplement will provide training for the candidate to research the neural basis of cognitive functions, their normal development, and their implications of mental health. Participation in this project will advance the goals of the project, which involves intensive computational analysis of neural data, and prepare the candidate for a career in mental health research.
The proposed research will determine how the functions of prefrontal cortex neurons change between adolescence and adulthood. Knowledge drawn from these experiments will elucidate the development of higher cognitive processes including response inhibition, which is necessary for understanding the biological basis of conditions such as Attention Deficit Disorder and mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.
