Mark E. McCourt - US grants

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. The subproject and investigator (PI) may have received primary funding from another NIH source, and thus could be represented in other CRISP entries. The institution listed is for the Center, which is not necessarily the institution for the investigator. For a project to assess whether exercising mental abilities through video games will improve cognitive abilities, everyday functioning and well being in older adults.

This objectives of this project are to create a state-of-the-art CORE Laboratory Facility for the NDSU Center for Visual Neuroscience through: 1) the renovation of 2141 square feet of space in Minard Hall, adjacent to space currently utilized for visual neuroscience research by the COBRE junior investigators and senior advisors; and 2) the acquisition of essential equipment items including two 168-channel electrophysiological workstations, a remote infrared eye/headtracker, and stimulus display equipment. This will establish a CORE Laboratory facility for high-density electroencephalographic neuroimaging, whose use is required by all four of the proposed COBRE projects. This CORE facility will also benefit researchers in the Department of Psychology more generally, as well as other biomedical and biobehavioral researchers at North Dakota State University. The renovations will also create special-purpose psychophysical laboratories for COBRE researchers.

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This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. Primary support for the subproject and the subproject's principal investigator may have been provided by other sources, including other NIH sources. The Total Cost listed for the subproject likely represents the estimated amount of Center infrastructure utilized by the subproject, not direct funding provided by the NCRR grant to the subproject or subproject staff. A. COBRE Specific Aims Specific Aim 1: To develop successful, independent, self-sustaining research projects for COBRE Project Directors which will enable future success in obtaining R01 funding. This aim is being accomplished by providing COBRE support to four Primary Projects and by establishing a Pilot Project Mechanism to stimulate interest in and recruit additional talent in visual and cognitive neuroscience. These research activities are nurtured and sustained by an Administrative Core consisting of the PI/PD, a two-member Internal Advisory Committee, a three-member External Advisory Committee, and five world-class scientists who serve as Primary Project Mentors. Three of the four Primary Projects are progressing nicely. The Project Director of the fourth project (Teder) has resigned from NDSU and we describe plans to reassign this project to another CVCN faculty member (Blakeslee). CVCN support has allowed Primary and Pilot Project Directors freedom from some teaching obligations during the past year, and these investigators have taken advantage of this opportunity to spend additional time in their laboratories working with graduate and undergraduate students, and with CVCN professional staff, to advance their research programs. Several supplements to the parent grant have allowed additional research progress to occur. The External Advisory Committee review of CVCN activities indicates we are making satisfactory progress. Specific Aim 2: To enhance the biobehavioral research infrastructure at NDSU through the development of multi-user CORE laboratory facilities. We are accomplishing this aim by continuing to develop and support six multiuser Core laboratory facilities: 1) High-Density EEG Core Facility;2) High Dynamic Range Imaging Core Facility;3) Immersive Virtual Reality Core Facility;4) Driving Simulation Core Facility;5) Eyetracking Core Facility;and 6) ElectroOptical Instrumentation Core Facility. CVCN faculty and students utilize these facilities to measure relationships between the structure and function of the nervous system and the behavior it governs. Users of the Core facilities are assisted by COBRE-supported technical professional staff. Specific Aim 3: To expand NDSU's research capability in visual and cognitive neuroscience by recruiting new faculty with research expertise in visual or cognitive neuroscience. In COBRE I we accomplished this aim by creating two new appropriated faculty lines (originally filled by Drs. Rainville and Teder (Note: Dr. Rainville was replaced by Dr. Ben Balas beginning 1/11, and Dr. Teder has recently resigned). We recently successfully recruited a new CVCN faculty member, Dr. Laura Thomas (doctorate from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana;postdoctoral training at Vanderbilt University). Dr. Thomas will join the CVCN beginning 8/11, and will augment our critical mass of research talent to help sustain the CVCN beyond the initial years of COBRE support. Next year we will initiate national searches for two additional faculty: one to replace Dr. Teder, and another to replace Dr. Chris Kelland Friesen, who was not granted tenure and has left NDSU. At full strength the NDSU CVCN has a complement of 11 visual/cognitive faculty neuroscientists, 2-3 Postdoctoral Research Associates, and approximately 12 graduate students. Specific Aim 4: To establish a nationally recognized Center for Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience at North Dakota State University. The realization of Specific Aims 1-3 will create a center of research excellence at NDSU which will attract additional quality faculty with a strong potential for independent research support, as well as postdoctoral research associates, graduate students, and undergraduates committed to timely and important research in visual and cognitive neuroscience.

This subproject is one of many research subprojects utilizing the resources provided by a Center grant funded by NIH/NCRR. Primary support for the subproject and the subproject's principal investigator may have been provided by other sources, including other NIH sources. The Total Cost listed for the subproject likely represents the estimated amount of Center infrastructure utilized by the subproject, not direct funding provided by the NCRR grant to the subproject or subproject staff. The objectives of this project are to create and maintain state-of-the-art Core Laboratory Facilities for the NDSU Center for Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience. The NDSU CVCN currently maintains Core Laboratories dedicated to: 1) High-density EEG acquisition and analysis;2) Driving simulation;3) Eye-tracking;4) Immerisve virtual reality displays;5) High-dynamic range imaging technology;and 6) Opto-electronic equipment. These Core facilities benefit Primary Projects, Pilot Projects, CVCN and NDSU Department of Psychology faculty in general, as well as being a resource to other biomedical and biobehavioral researchers at North Dakota State University.

Determining the basic mechanisms of human achromatic visual perception is important to understanding the operation of human vision as a whole. This proposal is concerned with lightness, brightness and transparency perception, and is aimed primarily at understanding how the visual system parses incoming patterns of light into separate representations of surface reflectance and illumination intensity. The research could have implications for the design of visual displays, virtual reality systems, artificial vision systems, and effective lighting systems. The project integrates the basic research goals with the training of undergraduate students as well as public outreach in the state of North Dakota.

Though the initial visual information entering the visual system is a distribution of light intensity (an image) on the back surface of the eye (the retina), the retinal image itself is inherently ambiguous because the intensity at each point in the retinal image is given by the product of the amount of incident light (illumination) and the surface reflectance. Without additional information (or prior assumptions), the relative contributions of these causes cannot be uniquely determined. This is known as the "inverse problem" in vision. The goal of the proposed research is to identify the prior assumptions and processing strategies that the visual system uses to solve this problem. In the experiments, observers make apparent intensity (brightness) and apparent reflectance (lightness) matches of surfaces (both rendered and real) under homogeneous illumination and in the presence of visible shadows and transparencies. Both behavioral responses and pupillary responses will be measured. Measuring both brightness and lightness perception under the carefully controlled conditions of the experiments is expected to increase current understanding of how the visual system parses incoming patterns of light into the separable components of surface reflectance and illumination intensity in the computations that enable perceived lighting to occur. The investigators ultimately aim to explain why people often vary in the accuracy of their judgments about lighting.

Dr. Mark E. McCourt, of North Dakota State University, along with departmental colleagues, will undertake research to study the neural mechanisms of human sensation, perception, cognition, emotion, and action using the newly acquired state-of-the-art Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) system. fNIRS is a non-invasive neuroimaging technique for investigating brain function through the measurement and analysis of infrared light that has been transmitted through the scalp, skull and cortical tissue. McCourt and colleagues will use fNIRS to measure brain activity in neurologically normal people of all ages, as well as in special populations such as those with schizophrenia, depression, autism, or other psychiatric or neurological conditions. The project integrates basic research goals with postgraduate, graduate, undergraduate, and public education. Scientific publications based on the use of fNIRS technology have increased exponentially over the past decade, and fNIRS neuroimaging is rapidly becoming an essential scientific tool for understanding brain-behavior relationships.

The fNIRS system will dramatically augment the research capability and activities of Dr. McCourt as well as six additional junior and senior researchers. Researchers will use the fNIRS system to compare audiovisual multisensory integration (MI) within the dorsal (action) and ventral (perception) processing streams; measure how the neural representation of real-world objects (e.g. faces) changes over the course of development in children ages 6 months-5 years; discover the cortical mechanisms responsible for encoding the retinal intensity distribution to represent brightness (the apparent intensity of a region of space) versus lightness (the apparent reflectance of a surface); examine the neural basis for learning homophones (words with different meanings that are perceptually equivalent) in preschool-age children; study the neural mechanisms of selective attention and visual working memory in neurologically normal participants as well as in those with a diagnosis of schizophrenia; use the fNIRS system to disclose the origin of the smooth pursuit eye movement signal which is essential for obtaining unambiguous depth information from motion parallax; and study the neural mechanisms that make visual perception of objects near the hands quantitatively different than the perception of the same objects at other locations. The availability of fNIRS technology will greatly enhance training opportunities and research competitiveness for faculty and students alike.

The Technical Services Core (TSC) provides advanced computer programming support for real-time applications, electronics design and fabrication, custom EEG recording and analysis software, and web development and maintenance support for the faculty and students of the CVCN, for the Department of Psycholoyg, for NDSU as a whole, for visual and cognitive neuroscience researchers in the region, and for COBRE investigators in other IDeA states. The TSC also includes two subcomponents: Electro-Optical Instrumentation and Eye Tacking. The TSC is comprised of four key personnel, including the Core Director, Dr. Mark McCourt (PI/PD). The staff are Huanzhong ?Dan? Gu, M.S. (Senior Software Engineer), Enrique Alvarez Vazquez, M.S. (Electronics and Software Engineer), and Ganesh Padmanabhan, B.S. (Software Engineer). These three programmer/ engineers have been recognized for their contributions to the research of CVCN students and faculty by sharing authorship on over 36 conference presentations and 13 peer-reviewed publications, to date. Advancing knowledge in modern systems neuroscience requires intimate familiarity with computers, stimulus presentation and response collection devices, calibration equipment, and software tools. The TSC makes an essential contribution to nearly every project that CVCN researchers have conducted (over 450 projects which have resulted in 142 cited peer-reviewed publications). The TSC will routinely advertise the availability of programming and engineering services that they provide, and consult with prospective users concerning how their needs might be accommodated on a fee-for-service or fee-waived basis. In cooperation with the faculty of the CVCN and the NDSU Department of Psychology the TSC will offer an undergraduate/graduate course in computer programming for neuroscience reserarch which will meet the needs of the students and faculty alike, and will include training using MATLAB, PsychToolBox, VisualStudio.NET, NBS Presentation, Python, and Mobile app development (for iOS and Android devices). The TSC also offers the design of custom electronics and hardware devices frequently used in visual and cognitive neuroscience research (interfacing eyetrackers and other instrumentation with computers), digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital cards, programming in C/C++ for embedded systems (i.e., micro-controllers), and the programming and control of 3D printing devices.

Basic and translational research into the neural bases of human sensation, perception, attention, and cognition is necessary to lay the foundation for clinical treatments and interventions. Remarkable progress has been made in the discovery of novel behavioral and electrophysiological biomarkers for disorders of perception, attention, cognition, and action. These include schizophrenia, Parkinson's, autism, dementia, mild cognitive impairment, traumatic brain injury, dyslexia, and amblyopia, to name but a few. These, along with normal aging, negatively impact the health and quality of life of a large number of Americans. Discovering biomarkers for such disorders allows early diagnosis and intervention, and translational research may result in the development of novel and effective treatments. Progress in the field as a whole is reflected in the research accomplishments of CVCN researchers in Phases I and II. In Phase III we will continue to contribute to novel discovery in visual and cognitive neuroscience by supporting creative research activity and world-class Core facilities that will potentiate further discovery. The Administrative Core provides the organizational structure to extend into Phase III the research and infrastructure development goals realized in Phases I and II. The Administrative Core will promote the continued success of research addressing the neural mechanisms of human sensation, perception, and cognition, and action, in both normal and disordered states, through: 1) the sustained efficient operation of 3 Scientific/Technical Cores (Technical Services Core; Driving Simulator Core; High-Density EEG/Neurostimulation Core) which provide mission-critical research resources to CVCN faculty and students, and which benefit the scientific activities of a broad array of current and future users on the NDSU campus and beyond; 2) continued support for a successful competitive Pilot Project Program, initiated in Phases I and II, which provides short-term support as well as scientific mentoring and career development services to applicants with promising research proposals; and 3) the development of, and active participation in, two outreach mechanisms (the Inter-COBRE Council and the Scientific Exchange Network) which will serve as conduits for the exchange of scientific and technical expertise and the dissemination of knowledge, research findings, ideas, and best practices, between COBREs with cognate research themes within the state, the region, and the nation. A formal evaluation process involving internal review and external oversight will be implemented to ensure that the various components of the CVCN are well integrated and operate effectively. A plan to ensure the sustained availability of the Scientific/Technical Cores beyond the Phase III funding period is described which combines efficient Core management, a fee-for-service cost recovery mechanism, and the commitment of permanent institutional resources.

The COBRE-supported Center for Visual and Cognitive Neuroscience has administered a Pilot Project Program (PPP) since the second year of Phase I funding in 2005. Over the past 10 years the CVCN has made nine Pilot Project awards totaling $471K. Based on these awards PPP recipients have published 58 peer-reviewed papers citing COBRE support, made 142 scientific presentations, submitted 41 proposals requesting $32.8M in external support, and have competed successfully for 15 awards (for $3.3M), making the CVCN PPP an outstanding return on investment. North Dakota State University currently has no Pilot Grant mechanism, making the COBRE PPP an essential need. The following is a brief summary of the PPP proposed for Phase III. The CVCN competitive PPP will provide short-term (up to 12 months, renewable for up to an additional 12 months based on exceptional performance and demonstrated need) funding and mentoring to NDSU faculty who submit meritorious proposals for research which will advance the scientific understanding of the neural mechanisms of sensation, perception, cognition, or action. Typical support is ~$60K/year for single-investigator projects and ~$120K/year for multi-investigator propojects. To be eligible for PPP support applicants must hold a faculty appointment (or equivalent) at NDSU, that is, applicants must be eligible to independently apply for Federal or non-Federal Research Project Grants. Funds may be used for standard expense categories, including personnel (Pilot Project Director(s), student and staff salary, including fringe benefits at NDSU specified rates), supplies, travel, and other. All CVCN multiuser Core facilities are available for Pilot Project use. A Request for Proposals will be broadcast on the NDSU faculty listserv in early August. Proposals will be due in early September with a start date in early September. Proposals will be reviewed internally or externally if internal reviewers lack the necessary expertise. Proposals will be scored according to review criteria for the NIH R03 (Small Grant) mechanism. Proposals will be prioritized for funding based on scientific merit and likelihood to generate external funding. Given equivalent scientific merit consideration will be given first to junior faculty members, and then to proposals that utilize CVCN core facilities. The overall success of the PPP will therefore be evaluated based upon whether the program is meeting its Specific Aim, which is to support Pilot Projects which lead to publications, presentations, grant proposal submissions, and external funding.

The High-Density Electroencephalography (EEG)/Neurostimulation Core (EEGC) provides the faculty and students of the CVCN, NDSU as a whole, visual and cognitive neuroscience researchers in the region, and COBRE investigators in other IDeA states, access to a state-of-the-art high-density EEG and neurostimulation (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) facility. The EEGC consists of several EEG recording suites, housed in electromagnetically and acoustically shielded chambers, for the conduct of high-density EEG neuroimaging experiments. The EEGC also possesses the capability of non-invasive neurostimulation using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). The overarching enterprise of the CVCN is to facilitate the ability of researchers to conduct experiments that shed light on the relationship (causal or correlational) between nervous system activity and human sensation, perception, cognition and action. The EEGC also includes a washroom for the removal of electrode gel and saline from subjects' hair after recording sessions. Drs. Ben Balas and Jeff Johnson are Co-Directors of the EEGC. They are experts in EEG recording and analysis and are among the primary users of this Core. The EEGC also supports a full-time EEG Technician to assist Balas and johnson to train students and novice users, and assist all users. The EEGC serves the current and future research needs of many CVCN faculty, as well as colleagues with interests in social psychology, developmental psychology, health psychology, and clinical psychology. The EEGC has enabled the conduct of over 72 projects involving the participation of over 1350 human subjects. These experiments have resulted in 29 peer-reviewed publications and 59 conference presentations to date, and have sponsored sucessful grant proposals to external funding agencies (NSF, NIH). The services of the EEGC will be routinely advertised to potential users, and training in the use of its facilities will be offered. Fee-for-service access to the EEGC will be available to potential users. User fees are based on the cost of providing the service; fee waivers are available to users lacking funds to pay.

The Driving Simulator Core (DSC) provides the faculty and students of the CVCN, the Department of Psychology, NDSU as a whole, visual and cognitive neuroscience researchers in the region, and COBRE investigators in other IDeA states, access to a state-of-the-art driving simulator facility. The DSC is based on a DriveSafety DS-600c research driving simulator. The DS-600c includes a realistic vehicle cabin consisting of driver and passenger seats, a center console, a fully instrumented dashboard, a rearview mirror display, and controls for steering, braking, and acceleration. The cabin is mounted on a three degrees-of-freedom motion platform in order to simulate the motions associated with driving (acceleration, deceleration, road roughness). The simulated driving environment is imaged onto five 65? high-definition LED/LCD screens that provide over 180o view, and is displayed on three mini-LCD screens mounted on the rear-view and side mirrors. DriveSafety's HyperDrive Authoring Suite is used to model complex driving scenarios and to precisely control the presentation of stimuli within the simulated environment giving researchers full control over the environment, objects, and events that might influence the driver's behavior. The actual simulation is computer controlled using DriveSafety's Vection software, which controls updating of the displays, and also enables real- time data collection on several performance measures. The state of all vehicle controls and instruments is sampled at a rate of 60 Hz during simulations, enabling detailed analysis of driving-related behaviors. Moreover, response buttons on the steering wheel and center console facilitate the collection of data relevant for psychological research, such as speeded responses to events in the simulated environment. Additionally, a FaceLAB eyetracker (a component of the Eye Tracking Core supported during Phases I and II) mounted on the dashboard is used to compute point-of-gaze, within and outside the cab, as participants drive the simulated vehicle. For ethanol intoxication paradigms, the DSC has an Intoxilyzer 5000 (CMI, Inc), a current evidentiary- level blood alcohol content (BAC) analyzer, for accurate BAC measurement. The DSC also has AN/PVS-7B series night vision goggles for the study their limitations on acuity, depth perception, and distance estimation.

Mobile devices, such as smart phones, are being increasingly utilized for watching videos, since they can be conveniently used for this purpose anywhere anytime, such as commuting on a subway or train, sitting in a waiting room, or lounging at home. Due to the large data size and intensive computation, video processing requires frequent memory access that consumes a large amount of power, limiting battery life and frustrating mobile users. On one hand, memory designers are focusing on hardware-level power-optimization techniques without considering how hardware performance influences viewers' actual experience. On the other hand, the human visual system is limited in its ability to detect subtle degradations in image quality; for example, under conditions of high ambient illumination, such as outdoors in direct sunlight, the veiling luminance (i.e., glare) on the screen of a mobile device can effectively mask imperfections in the image, so that under these circumstances a video can be rendered in lower than full quality without the viewer being able to detect any difference. This isolation between hardware design and viewer experience significantly increases hardware implementation overhead due to overly pessimistic design margins. This project integrates viewer-awareness and hardware adaptation to achieve power optimization without degrading video quality, as perceived by users. The results of this project will impact both basic research on hardware design and human vision, and provide critical viewer awareness data from human subjects, which can be used to engineer better video rendering for increased battery life on mobile devices. The project will directly involve undergraduate and graduate students, including females and Native Americans, in interdisciplinary research.

Developing a viewer-aware mobile video-memory solution has proven to be a very challenging problem due to (i) complex existing viewer-experience models; (ii) memory modules without runtime adaptation; and (iii) the difficulty of viewer-experience analysis for hardware designers. This project addresses the problem by (i) focusing on the most influential viewing-context factor impacting viewer experience - ambient luminance; (ii) proposing novel methodologies for adaptive hardware design; and (iii) integrating a unique combination of expertise from the investigators, ranging from psychology to Integrated Circuit design and embedded systems. Specifically, this project will (i) experimentally and mathematically connect viewer experience, ambient illuminance, and memory performance; (ii) develop energy-quality adaptive hardware that can adjust memory usage based on ambient luminance so as to reduce power usage without impacting viewer experience; and (iii) design a mobile video system to fully evaluate the effectiveness of the developed methodologies.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.