This proposal seeks matching funds for five years to support the Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience, an annual, multidisciplinary training program in cognitive neuroscience. The broad, long-term objectives of The Summer Institute are to advance the studies of mind and brain that will lead to our better understanding mental functioning, mental health, and mental disorders. Education Program Plan: The Institute brings together senior graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, physician fellows, psychiatrists, psychologists, and junior faculty of the wide variety of disciplines that intersect in the study of human consciousness and cognition. The topics and faculty change yearly to allow rapid response to areas of mind/brain research that show promise for advancing the research agenda. Together, the fellows and faculty address problems in the science of mind, defining questions, presenting hypotheses, exploring existing experimental results, and developing each participant's ability to carry on innovative and important research into mind and brain mechanisms and disorders. The format includes formal lectures, laboratory exercises, and demonstrations by faculty, as well as constant interaction fostered by social events and the proximity of the fellows in a residential setting. In a five-year cycle, four of the five Summer Institutes run for 2 weeks and train 70 fellows. In the fifth year, the program is extended to 3 weeks with a larger faculty and 25 fellows invited back from previous Institutes for a comprehensive review of the field of cognitive neuroscience. The information synthesized and evaluated at this Summer Institute is then published as The Cognitive Neurosciences, edited by Dr. Michael Gazzaniga, Institute Director. The Cognitive Neurosciences is widely used as the primary and standard reference book in the field. Curricula for the Institutes are set one year in advance.
The specific aims of the 1997 Summer Institute are to ascertain the usefulness and importance of brain imaging in cognition and mental states. The specific activities proposed in 1997 include brain dissection laboratories with direct comparison to various images, lectures by experts in selected areas of cognitive neuroscience who use imaging, a site visit to a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) facility, and debates on: the implications of neuroimaging for models of brain organization, combining temporal and anatomical imaging data, the ultimate resolution of spatial and temporal data, the significance of magnet strength in fMRI and related vascular issues, the """"""""Talairach atlas,"""""""" and the significance of size of brain structures.
| Queenan, Bridget N; Ryan, Tomás J; Gazzaniga, Michael S et al. (2017) On the research of time past: the hunt for the substrate of memory. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1396:108-125 |
| Bassett, Danielle S; Gazzaniga, Michael S (2011) Understanding complexity in the human brain. Trends Cogn Sci 15:200-9 |
| Gazzaniga, Michael S (2010) Neuroscience and the correct level of explanation for understanding mind. An extraterrestrial roams through some neuroscience laboratories and concludes earthlings are not grasping how best to understand the mind-brain interface. Trends Cogn Sci 14:291-2 |
