John Garcia - US grants

Our research program is concerned with the dual system of specialized behavioral and neural mechanisms, which evolved in vertebrates as a result of the selective pressures inherent in the food chain. To protect the skin from a predatory attack, distal stimuli detected by the head receptors and peripheral insults from predatory attack converge to integrative mechanisms in dorsal regions of the brain. Learning results in motor avoidance of the peripheral insult elicited by the distal signal. To protect the gut from poisoned food, taste of food in the mouth and visceral feedback from ingested food converge to integrative mechanisms in ventral regions of the brain. Learning results in a food aversion. We study both systems in various species because the utilization of cues and the learning parameters are different within each system. Furthermore, skin defense is a subsystem representative of the behavioral mechanisms for coping with the external environment while gut defense is a subsystem representative of the hedonic mechanisms for regulating the homeostatic environment. The differences between the two systems are relevant to psychobiological theory in general and to learning theory in particular. Learning within the skin defense subsystem is characterized by precise motor movements in time and space. Reliable signals for peripheral insults tend to block weak and redundant signals. On the other hand, learning within the gut system is selective, sluggish and hedonic in nature. Taste, the most reliable cue for poison, has the capacity to potentiate weak distal cues. These data also have practical implications. Food aversions have been used to protect lambs from wild coyotes. Feasibility studies indicate that similar techniques can also protect vegetable crops from raiding baboons, and protect the distinctive eggs of endangered species from crows and ravens. Conditioned flavor aversions have also been used as part of alcohol abuse programs. Conversely, knowlege of conditioned illness parameters can assist the physician to establish chemotherapy treatment schedules to reduce conditioned aversions to nutritious food and assist the clinician to counteract conditioned nausea and vomiting.

ASSIST represents a collaborative effort between the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, along with State and local health departments and other voluntary organizations to develop comprehensive tobacco control programs in up to 20 states and metropolitan areas. The ASSIST intervention model is based on proven smoking prevention and control methods developed within the National Cancer Institute's intervention trials and other smoking and behavioral research. The purpose of ASSIST is to demonstrate that the wide-spread, coordinated application of the best available strategies to prevent and control tobacco use will significantly accelerate the current downward trend in smoking and tobacco use, thereby reducing the number and rate of tobacco- related cancers in the United States. The NCI has set a goal of reducing cancer mortality rates 50 percent by the end of the century (1). To accomplish this goal, the primary objective of reducing adult smoking prevalence to 15 percent or less must be met as soon as possible. The primary goal of ASSIST is to develop a comprehensive tobacco control program which will accelerate the downward trend in smoking and tobacco use prevalence and thereby reduce both the number and rate of those cancers related to tobacco. The major objective is to demonstrate that the downward trend in prevalence within the 20 ASSIST sites implementing comprehensive tobacco control interventions, will significantly exceed the trend observed in the U.S. population by the end of the five year program. General functions of the Coordinating Center include: design and development of coordination and communication mechanisms among and between demonstration sites, the NCI and other relevant organizations; logistical and administrative support to the NCI Program Office for designing training, planning, and program meetings; the preparation of reports, guidance, and training materials for the project; and the planning and administration of various evaluations and studies of the project.

Provides services to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's (NHLBI's) Office of Prevention, Education, and Control (OPEC) to take advantage of technology now and in the future to provide for the rapid translation and dissemination of findings from NHLBI-funded research. It advances the development of an NHLBI Health Information Network that provides: ease of access for all; networked linking and transfer of NHLBI science-based health information with and to OPEC's primary audiences; increased awareness of the NHLBI and the value of its information; interactivity designed to enhance partnerships, individualize responsiveness, promote better communication, acquire information, disseminate information, and assess public and professional information needs; adoption and utilization of NHLBI information by all of its publics; and use of technology to reduce information-transfer costs. Provides technical and management capability to respond to selected performance- based project plans that include program planning, development, and evaluation in support of the NHLBI national health education programs and special initiatives which currently include the National High Blood Pressure Education Program, National Cholesterol Education Program, National Asthma Education and Prevention Program, National Heart Attack Alert Program, NHLBI Obesity Education Initiative, and National Center on Sleep Disorders Research. Also provides professional and support staff to assist NHLBI in planning and convening meetings and to assist in extending and operationalizing the education programs/initiatives partnership experience in a global domain with the use of existing and emerging information technologies.

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan hosts a new Research for Undergraduates (REU) site offering a ten-week summer experience for eight eligible undergraduate students entering their junior or senior years. This program builds on and expands both a long standing summer training program in quantitative research in the social sciences, hosted by ICPSR since 1963, and a highly effective undergraduate internship program that began in 2005. The REU site significantly expands the existing internship program's scope through the inclusion of a research project that pulls together all of the skills the students learn into one tangible product, completed under the guidance of a designated research mentor, and expands its breadth by increasing the number of students. This site creates a research experience in which delving into the data management aspects of social science research (preparing data for archiving and dissemination), along with focused methodological training in quantitative research, is seamlessly integrated for the purpose of exploring a research query from start to finish. This provides a unique research experience for undergraduate students, especially those from small and under-resourced institutions preparing them for capstone or senior thesis projects, graduate school, and/or research-based careers.

This REU Site (1) Introduces undergraduates studying the social sciences to the entire research process including data preparation, documentation, and analysis; (2) Provides advanced training in research methods/statistics through the ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences; (3) Identifying a research question; completing a literature search, review, and data analysis; and preparing a research poster with the assistance of both research process and faculty mentors in a substantive field of interest. (4) Broadening access to research opportunities to social science students at colleges and universities with fewer resources; (5) Providing experiences in professional socialization through networking, brown bags, and informal presentations.

Intellectual Merit: Research methods and statistics are core training for all undergraduate majors seeking a degree in the social sciences. However, such training often neglects many aspects of the research process because of limited course time and the complexity of research tasks, including study design, data collection and preparation, variable selection, and sophisticated data analysis. The pedagogic gap left between required methods and statistics courses in most undergraduate programs and actual research practice can be filled by full immersion in the research process as practiced in the substantive archives at ICPSR and the nuanced and focused practical coursework offered in the Summer Program. Rarely will an undergraduate have a chance to be involved in the entire process of social research, bolstered by coursework and individualized mentorship, in the way ICPSR's unique combination of opportunities allows. This exposure to the research process on a large scale will enhances the students' abilities to enter graduate school and to be successful once there.

Broader Impacts: In addition to offering a research opportunity focused on students at small and under-resourced institutions, this program allows students from several types of institutions to share experiences and build contact networks they would not otherwise have. The combination of coursework, hands-on experience, and professional socialization gained through the REU should increase participants' "research confidence" so that they can go back to their own campuses and act as mentors to others in their departments. By talking about their experiences with other students at their home institutions, REU participants themselves contribute to the goal of exposing students who might not otherwise think about graduate school or careers in research to these possibilities. The larger social science community also benefits when students present their work at regional meetings or undergraduate poster events.