BIRC news

Virtual Talk: Daniel Ansari, University of Western Ontario

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Daniel Ansari, PhD

University of Western Ontario

Wednesday, April 1st from 1:00-2:15 pm EST via Zoom

**Register here for Zoom using your university/institution email address**

Abstract:

Humans share with animals the ability to process numerical quantities in non-symbolic formats (e.g., collections of objects). Unlike other species, however, over cultural history, humans have developed symbolic representations (such as number words and digits) to represent numerical quantities exactly and abstractly. These symbols and their semantic referents form the foundations for higher-level numerical and mathematical skills. It is commonly assumed that symbols for number acquire their meaning by being mapped onto the pre-existing, phylogenetically ancient system for the approximate representation of non-symbolic number over the course of learning and development. In this talk I will challenge this hypothesis for how numerical symbols acquire their meanings (“the symbol grounding problem”). To do so, I will present a series of behavioral and neuroimaging studies with both children and adults that demonstrate that symbolic and non-symbolic processing of number is dissociated at both the behavioral and brain levels of analysis. I will discuss the implications of these data for theories of the origins of numerical symbol processing and its breakdown in children with mathematical learning disorders, such as Developmental Dyscalculia.

Bio: Daniel Ansari received his PhD from University College London in 2003. Presently, Daniel Ansari is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology and the Brain & Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, where he heads the Numerical Cognition Laboratory (www.numericalcognition.org). Ansari and his team explore the developmental trajectory underlying both the typical and atypical development of numerical and mathematical skills, using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods.

Click here to see the full BIRC Speaker Series schedule and access recordings of past talks.

BIRC’s response to the Coronavirus Outbreak Update #9 3-19-20

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Here are some brief updates, which won’t impact any of you on the list serve (please note a virtual-only talk on 4/1 Wed).

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RESEARCH
In-person research continues to be suspended and now until 5/11 or until further notice.
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CLINICAL
In-person clinical is now suspended until 5/11 or until further notice.
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SERVICES CONTINUED
We will continue to provide virtual services.
BIRC will start hosting virtual-only talks if there seems to be interest. Dr. Daniel Ansari will kick us off on Wednesday, 4/1 at 1:00-2:15pm EST. He is a Professor and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology and the Brain & Mind Institute at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. Dr. Ansari is an expert in educational neuroscience and MRI imaging of numerical processing. Please mark your calendars. Zoom in information and additional information TBA.
Staff will continue to check in on the facility and equipment twice a week. No disinfection will be done.
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If you have any questions, as always, please contact us.
Stay safe and please find humor in your daily lives in these challenging times.
Warmly,
BIRC Staff
PS: For your entertainment, with the lockdown (in SF), this is my life right now. Perhaps it’s yours, too. 🙂

BIRC’s response to the Coronavirus Outbreak Update #6 3-16-20

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With many states and counties advancing into lockdown (SF is stating lockdown of the whole city together with neighboring counties effective tonight – just announced! I believe it will come our way to CT sooner than we think/hope. I hope I am wrong), we have made some adjustments.

We technically remain open until the university announcement, but …

RESEARCH SCANS
We have cancelled all research scans until 4/6 and will continue to discourage scanning unless you can convince us 🙂

CLINICAL SCANS
While UCHC has decided to only cancel elective surgery at this point, and no outpatient services are cancelled, we have agreed to cancel/postpone all clinical scans as well. We will scan the remaining patients if there are critical needs but have suspended all clinical scans at least until 4/6 as well. We are currently not booking any new patients. Thanks for Leo Wolansky (UCHC Radiology Department Chair)’s understanding in the service of protecting our staff.
Hence no disinfection will be done as complete telecommuting has started.

If you have critical needs please contact me.

Stay safe and happy…
Fumiko

BIRC’s response to the Coronavirus Outbreak Update #5 3-16-20

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A quick update to you all. 

RESEARCH SCANS
We are currently technically open. But we do not have any research scans until the weekend (and they are non-EEG) and will likely close as soon as we get guidance from VPR. They are in discussions and will propose recommendations to the President this afternoon. We are urging the university to stop all non-critical/essential research that does not impact human health ASAP. We should have updates before any further research scans are done.

CLINICAL SCANS
We are in discussions with UCHC Radiology to stop clinical MRI as well as they are non-priority scans.

OTHER ACTIVITIES
We remain open virtually for any consultations or training that can be done remotely. We will suspend in person MRI safety training until further notice. LMK if this impacts your research plans.

Please do not come in to use the conference rooms or data room unless necessary. While we have staff telecommute, we will not be disinfecting the areas as we had originally planned and was doing last week. If you do need to come in to BIRC, please contact me.

Thank you,
Fumiko

BIRC’s response to the Coronavirus Outbreak Update #4 3-13-20

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At this time BIRC will continue to be fully operational. Any scheduled research will not be impacted, and investigators can schedule additional research times as needed.

Please note that we will be complying with the University’s request to have staff and faculty telecommute when possible and may not be in the facility during normal business hours; however, please feel free to email any questions to Fumiko Hoeft, Roeland Hancock, or Elisa Medeiros.

IBRAiN Office Hours

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IBRAiN fellows hold weekly office hours for the BIRC community to help users with their projects and provide short tutorials. Spring 2020 hours are held virtually Mondays 1:30-4:30p, Tuesdays 12-3p, Wednesdays 9a-12p, Thursdays 2-5p, and Fridays 2-5p. To join an office hour, connect to meeting 646 198 704 on UConn Webex.
For more information about the fellows and office hours, please see https://birc.uconn.edu/ibrain-team/. Collectively, the fellows provide expertise in fMRI analysis using AFNI or FSL, cluster computing, and EEG analysis. If you have a research project that would benefit from IBRAiN involvement beyond office hours, please contact roeland.hancock@uconn.edu.

Talk: David Badre, Brown University

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David Badre, PhD
Brown University

Tuesday, March 3rd from 1:30-3:00 pm in Arjona 307

Abstract:

This talk will describe an on-going line of research in our lab investigating the cognitive and neural systems that support hierarchical cognitive control, or our ability to simultaneously control immediate actions while also holding more abstract, temporally remote goals in mind. Psychologists have long proposed that we have a capacity for hierarchical control, citing its potential contributions to sequential behavior, as well as higher-order planning, reasoning, and abstraction. Despite its importance for cognition, the cognitive and neural mechanisms that support hierarchical control remain unknown. Here I will provide a line of evidence suggesting that this type of complex control partly depends on gating of working memory by cortico-striatal circuits. In this light, I will discuss on-going efforts to develop fMRI methods that can characterize the dimensionality of neural representations in the prefrontal cortex that support complex task control.

Bio:David Badre received his Ph.D. from the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT in 2005. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, he joined Brown’s Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences as Assistant Professor in 2008 and was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor in 2014 and then Professor in 2019. He is also an affiliate of the Carney Institute for Brain Science and a trainer in the Neuroscience Graduate Program. His lab at Brown focuses on the cognitive neuroscience of memory and cognitive control with an emphasis on frontal lobe function and organization. Dr. Badre serves on the editorial boards of Psychological Science, Cognitive Science, and Behavioral Neuroscience.  He served as Section Editor covering “Executive Function and Cognitive Control” for Neuropsychologia until 2017. Presently, he serves on the Board of Reviewing Editors for the journal eLife, and he is a standing member of the Cognition and Perception study section of NIH. His research is supported by NINDS and NIMH at the NIH, and through the Office of Naval Research. His work has been recognized by several awards, including an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship in Neuroscience, a James S. McDonnell Scholar Award in Understanding Human Cognition, and the Cognitive Neuroscience Society Young Investigator Award. His book on the neuroscience of cognitive control, entitled On Task: How the brain gets things done, will be published in November, 2020 through Princeton University Press.

**Register here for Webex**

Please email birc@uconn.edu if you are interested in meeting with a speaker. Click here to see the full BIRC Speaker Series schedule and access recordings of past talks.

Talk: Katarzyna Chawarska, Yale University

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Katarzyna Chawarska, PhD
Yale University

Tuesday, February 4th from 1:30-3:00 pm in Arjona 307

Abstract:The lecture will address selected facets of social and emotional development during prodromal and early syndromal stages of Autism Spectrum Disorder and their links with later outcomes amongst children with ASD and their siblings. Recent efforts in fetal and neonatal neuroimaging  to understand underlying mechanisms will be briefly mentioned.

Bio: Dr. Katarzyna Chawarska is Emily Fraser Beede Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics, and Statistics and Data Science and the Director of the Social and Affective Neuroscience of Autism Program and the Yale Autism Center of Excellence Program at the Child Study Center, Yale School of Medicine.  Her research focuses on identifying early markers of core and co-morbid symptoms in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and related conditions.  She has served as the Chair of the Baby Sibling Research Consortium, and a Board member of the International Society for Autism Research. She is a principal investigator on numerous federally and privately funded grants as well as the lead author on multiple publications and book chapters. In her clinical practice, Dr. Chawarska specializes in early diagnosis of ASD as well as developmental follow-up of infants at risk for ASD due to familial, genetic factors, or due to prenatal or perinatal complications such as premature birth.  She is also committed to training of the next generation of clinicians and researchers in the field of developmental disabilities as well as promoting early detection of ASD both nationally and internationally.

**Register here for Webex**

Please email birc@uconn.edu if you are interested in meeting with a speaker. Click here to see the full BIRC Speaker Series schedule and access recordings of past talks.

Talk: Kimberly Noble, Columbia University

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Kimberly Noble, MD, PhD
Columbia University

Tuesday, December 3rd from 1:30-3:00 pm in Arjona 307

Abstract: Socioeconomic disparities in childhood are associated with remarkable differences in cognitive and socio-emotional development during a time when dramatic changes are occurring in the brain. Recent work has focused on understanding the neurobiological pathways through which socioeconomic factors shape development. Behavioral evidence suggests that language, memory, social-emotional skills, and executive functions exhibit relatively large differences across socioeconomic lines, and more recent work has found differences in socioeconomic differences in brain structure in the very regions that support these skills. It is likely that socioeconomic factors operate via multiple mechanisms to explain the development of different neural circuits. A theoretical model will be presented whereby differences in the home language environment and family stress likely impact particular brain systems, which in turn support distinct neurocognitive skills. Evidence for the model, as well as ongoing and future work testing aspects of the model, will be discussed. Finally, the question of interventions will be addressed, along with an overview of Baby’s First Years, the first clinical trial of poverty reduction in early childhood.

Bio:Kimberly Noble, MD, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Neuroscience and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She received her undergraduate, graduate and medical degrees at the University of Pennsylvania. As a neuroscientist and board-certified pediatrician, she studies how socioeconomic inequality relates to in children’s cognitive and brain development.  Her work examines socioeconomic disparities in cognitive development, as well as brain structure and function, across infancy, childhood and adolescence. She is particularly interested in understanding how early in infancy or toddlerhood such disparities develop; the modifiable environmental differences that account for these disparities; and the ways we might harness this research to inform the design of interventions. She is one of the principal investigators of the Baby’s First Years study: the first clinical trial of poverty reduction to assess the causal impact of income on children’s cognitive, emotional and brain development in the first three years of life. Dr. Noble was elected a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, and was awarded a 2017 Association for Psychological Science Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions. Her work linking family income to brain structure across childhood and adolescence has received worldwide attention in the popular press.

**Register here for Webex**

Please email birc@uconn.edu if you are interested in meeting with a speaker. Click here to see the full BIRC Speaker Series schedule and access recordings of past talks.