Cognition and Neuroimaging Lab (Ryan, Nadel) The neural basis of memory, age-related changes in memory, and how these changes relate to brain functioning. Research topics also include memory disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease, AIDS-related dementia, and diseases of white matter including multiple sclerosis.

Cognitive Map Lab (Nadel): Approaches to the functions of the hippocampal cognitive mapping function, including studies of spatial development, the impact of developmental disorders (Down syndrome in particular) on spatial and episodic memory development, the special nature of spatial learning, the role of the hippocampus in episodic memory and remote memory retrieval (in collaboration with L. Ryan and the CNL group), and the involvement of the hippocampus in various clinical syndromes, including PTSD and other anxiety disorders (in collaboration with W.J. Jacobs and the ARG group). Analyses of the role of the hippocampus in consciousness and dream states are also underway.

Anxiety Research Group (Jacobs, Nadel) Investigations of specific phobia, panic attacks, post-traumatic stress disorder, and related anxiety disorders, failures in rational decision making, and delay of gratification.We focus on human spatial cognition, emotional cognition, and decision making under normal and highly stressful conditions.

Psychophysiology Laboratory (Allen) Recording electroencephalographic and autonomic psychophysiological signals during cognitive and emotional tasks. Current research projects focus on several broad questions or topics: identifying brain systems involved in emotion, and how these may relate to risk for emotional disorders; individual differences in error and performance monitoring; using event-related brain potentials for assessing memory, including the assessment of malingering and deception; the role of vagal tone in the modulation of emotion.

Amnesia and Cognition Unit (Glisky) Cognitive and neuropsychological bases of memory, with particular emphasis on changes occurring with both normal and pathological aging and brain injury. Recent research projects include studies of source memory and flashbulb memory, the role of self-knowledge and self-reference in the enhancement of memory in people with brain injuries and Alzheimer's disease, and identification of early cognitive and neural markers of Alzheimer's disease.

Memory Reconsolidation Lab (Gomez, Nadel):  Research is this lab focuses on memory consolidation and reconsolidation, typically in human subjects.  Current investigations include analyses of the conditions under which memories are updated, how long after initial learning such updates can occur, how long this updating lasts, and what aspects of the updating situation trigger this process.  Results to date indicate that context plays a particularly important role, and we are investigating this issue in studies in both human subjects and animal models (in collaboration with Jean-Marc Fellous).

Brain Imaging, Behavior & Aging Lab (Alexander) The research in this lab focuses on studying brain-behavior relationships in the context of aging and age-related, neurodegenerative disease. Studies include the use of neuroimaging methods, such as structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), combined with measures of cognition to address research questions on human cognitive aging and Alzheimer's disease. A major focus of the lab includes the use of univariate and novel multivariate analytic methods to investigate how regionally distributed patterns of brain function and structure are associated with individual differences in cognition as we age. The lab is also involved in the application of neuroimaging methods to non-human animal models of aging and disease.

Language Development Lab (Gerken) The Tweety Lab focuses on infants' and toddlers knowledge of the phonological and syntactic properties of their native language and asks what formal and statistical properties of language-like systems they are able to learn in short laboratory exposures.

Child Cognition Lab (Gomez) Research in this lab focuses on early learning abilities in infants between 6 and 18 months of age. We study learning by exposing infants to artificial languages. Given the myriad possibilities open to learners, we would like to understand how learning might be guided and how cognitive processes are involved in learning.

Language and Cognition (Bever). Studies of the relation between linguistic structures (e.g., hierarchies), language characteristics (e.g., cerebral dominance), and general cognitive processes (e.g., part-whole computations). Current investigations also include systematic explorations of the roles of Semantic Event Structure in language understanding, in English and other languages. Other studies involve visual or musical analogues to linguistic processes. The lab is equipped for modern cognitive and psycholinguistic research.

Psycholinguistics Lab (West) (Nicol) Experimental studies of reading (via eye-tracking and other methods), spoken language comprehension, and spoken language production in monolinguals and bilinguals, and language learning.

Psycholinguistics Lab (East) (Forster, Garrett). Sentence comprehension and production, visual word recognition, masked priming, picture naming, speech errors, aphasia and related disorders.

Visual Cognition Lab (Peterson) Shape and object perception, attention, perceptual learning, visual binding, grouping, segmentation, and context effects. Our experiments on object perception investigate how past experience with objects enters into the determination of figures and grounds. Other research investigates how configural cues combine with each other and with depth cues to produce perceived shapes and surfaces. Our experiments on context effects in perceptual organization focus on visual search as well as figure assignment. Other major projects include studies of amodal completion, analytic and holistic processes in object perception, object-based attention, grouping, and the neural synchrony hypothesis of visual binding. We use a number of techniques to attempt to identify the neural mechanisms underlying the phenomena we study including behavioral experiments, ERP studies, and fMRI experiments.

Perceptual Learning Lab (Bedford) Prism adaptation, cross-modal discrepancies, space perception, McCollough Effect, contingent aftereffects, perceptual discrimination learning, perceptual adaptation, apparent motion, object and numerical identity and individuation, time perception.

Sleep Research Lab (Bootzin) Studies on information processing during sleep, sleep and memory, the effect of disturbed sleep on cognitive functioning, emotional regulation by sleep, the effect of trauma on sleep, and individual differences between sleep disturbed individuals (e.g., insomniacs) and good sleepers. The lab is also involved in treatment development and clinical trials of the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral treatments of insomnia. We have a two bedroom lab and use polysomnography, ERPs, actigraphy, and assessment of dim-light melatonin onset in addition to subjective measures of sleep.

Neural Decision Sciences Lab (Sanfey)  Cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying human judgment and decision-making. Our laboratory uses a variety of methods to study decision-making, including behavioral experiments, work with brain-damaged patients, and use of neuroimaging technology (fMRI and EEG).

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab (Scheres)  The main goal of this lab is to learn more about the neural, cognitive, and motivational basis of normal child development as well as developmental behavioral disorders such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), and Conduct Disorder (CD), and mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. The main focus at the moment is on ADHD. We do behavioral studies using neuropsychological and reward-choice tasks, and we do functional imaging research to study the neural basis of motivational processes in children with behavioral problems and children who are symptom-free

Computational and Experimental Neuroscience Laboratory (Fellous). Our research interests include the neurobiology of learning and emotional memory and the mechanisms and roles of reverberation and neuromodulation. We use a
multi-disciplinary approach that includes in vitro, in vivo and computational techniques.

Laboratory for Neural Computation and Cognition (Frank). My research involves computational modeling of neural mechanisms underlying implicit learning, working memory, and attention. These include interactions between basal ganglia, frontal cortex, and hippocampus. I am particularly interested in the role of dopamine in modulating cognitive processes. I also test computational and theoretical predictions of my models using various
neuropsychological, pharmacological, genetic, and neuroimaging techniques.

Down Syndrome Research Group (Nadel, Edgin):  Research in this lab focuses on cognitive impairments in Down syndrome individuals throughout the lifespsan.  In collaboration with researchers both in the USA and abroad we are developing a neuropsychological test battery targeted at the areas of function most compromised in Down syndrome.  This battery will allow us to assess genetic and environmental contributions to cognitive impairment in DS, and to evaluate the impact of treatments and early stimulation protocols.