1985 — 1992 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Permeability Control by Acetylcholine Receptor
We wish to understand how the binding of acetylcholine and other agonists by the nicotinic cholinergic receptor controls the permeability of the post-synaptic membrane and to understand how drugs and toxins interact with that receptor when they block the action of acetylcholine. Torpedo electric tissue will be fractionated to isolate post-synaptic membranes that will be used in studies of receptor structure and function. Radioligand and fluorescence binding assays will be used to define the kinetic and equilibrium binding constants characterizing receptor occupancy by agonists and antagonists. The permeability response will be measured by the flux of 22Na+ and other isotopes from the membranes. We will study the effects on the response of known concentrations of agonists and antagonists when present for times as short as 10 msec. The results of these functional studies will be used to determine how agonists binding results in the opening of the ion channel and then desensitization. We focus on the actions of amine non-competitive antagonists, including many local anesthetics, that block the action of acetylcholine by binding to a distinct "anesthetic" site on the receptor. We will identify the location of the binding sites for agonists and non-competitive antagonists within the structure of the receptor. Binding sites will be labeled covalently by appropriate radiolabeled affinity reagents, and the receptor will be degraded to identify the labeled peptides in terms of the primary amino acid sequence of the receptor subunits. To determine how the ligand binding sites are oriented within the three-dimensional structure of the receptor, we will use biochemical and immunological labeling procedures to identify receptor domains that are exposed at the extracellular surface, within the lipid bilayer, or on the cytoplasmic surface. We will also determine the linear distances between the ligand binding sites, the membrane bilayer and the cytoplasmic surface of the receptor from the energy transfer observed between appropriate fluorescent labels.
|
0.905 |
1987 — 1991 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
K11Activity Code Description: Undocumented code - click on the grant title for more information. |
Contex Disturbance in Schizophrenia: Models and Measure
This proposal represents a maturation of my interest in schizophrenic thought disorder, and my commitment to a multidisciplinary approach to its study. The program I describe here will provide me with fundamental skills in psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology which are directly relevant to research on schizophrenia, and which have not yet been applied in this field. Schizophrenics' use of language has been characterized as lacking in contextual constraint. Psycholinguists distinguish between various loci of contextual effects in language processing, identifying a lexical stage (access to a word's meaning) and postlexical stages. Maher has described a failure to actively suppress contextually irrelevant associations in schizophrenia, and attributes this to a deficit in postlexical processing. I have proposed an alternative, non-competing hypothesis which suggests that disturbances may also arise within lexical processing which account for similar results. In Phase I of this program, I will develop a parallel distributed computer model of language processing. Variables will be sought which can be manipulated in actual psycholinguistic experiments, and which distinguish between the effects of stimulus persistence and postlexical events on the processing of context. In Phase II, I will perform experiments with normal and schizophrenic subjects using chronometric lexical priming techniques, to test predictions which arise from these computer simulations. Positive findings in patients will be correlated with clinical variables, in order to explore the use of these techniques for diagnostic assessment. Work in Phases I and II will be directed to the testing of specific hypotheses concerning schizophrenic language dysfunction. This will not only allow me to explore the functional characteristics of thought disorder, but will also provide me with a training in theoretical and methodological techniques which will be of general value in psychiatric research.
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0.911 |
1989 |
Cohen, Jonathan |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Mathematical Sciences: Numerical and Computational Developments in Harmonic Analysis
This project will support a conference on Numerical and Computational Developments in Harmonic Analysis to be held on May 18, 1989 at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. The conference will be organized by Professor Jonathan Cohen of the Department of Mathematics of DePaul University. The focus of the conference will be on new results arising from the use of computers in research in harmonic analysis. Four one-hour talks will be presented by prominent researchers; the areas of discussion will include wavelets, singular integral techniques in the solution of boundary value problems, and the computation of harmonic measure.
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0.961 |
1990 — 1991 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
T32Activity Code Description: To enable institutions to make National Research Service Awards to individuals selected by them for predoctoral and postdoctoral research training in specified shortage areas. |
Systems and Molecular Neurobiology |
0.905 |
1991 — 2001 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. R29Activity Code Description: Undocumented code - click on the grant title for more information. |
Mechanism of Context Processing in Schizophrenia @ University of Pittsburgh At Pittsburgh
This proposal addresses the cognitive mechanisms underlying schizophrenic performance deficits of attention and language processing. Deficits have been observed in a variety of tasks related to each of these domains. However, there is little understanding of how these deficits relate to one another, or the information processing mechanisms that are responsible for them. In this proposal we describe a research program that uses theoretical and empirical methods from cognitive psychology to address these issues. We focus on deficits in three types of tasks: the Stroop task (a measure of selective attention), the continuous performance test (also an attentional measure), and lexical disambiguation tasks (which tests language processing). We present a set of computer models - based on the mechanisms of parallel distributed processing, or "connectionism" - that simulate the performance of normal and schizophrenic subjects in each of these tasks. The same disturbance is introduced into all three models to induce schizophrenic patterns of performance. As such, the models account for schizophrenic behavior in these tasks in terms of a single, specific disturbance in information processing: an impairment in the ability to maintain context for the selection of appropriate action. Prospectively, the models identify two dimensions along which behavioral tasks can be varied (the relative strength of competing response tendencies, and the demand placed on memory for context) that are predicted to have direct and specific influence on schizophrenic performance. We outline a research plan designed to test these predictions, and the hypothesis that a single, underlying disturbance can account for schizophrenic deficits in measures of attention and language. This involves a study, in which schizophrenics and appropriate controls are tested in the three tasks referred to above, as well as in a task that controls for short term memory function. All subjects will be tested in all tasks, so that cross-task correlations of performance can be studied within subjects. Finally, hypotheses concerning variables of clinical and biological relevance will be tested. While this research focuses on a particular subset of the psychopathological phenomena associated with schizophrenia, it promises to advance our understanding of the basic cognitive mechanisms underlying these phenomena, and to organize a set of performance deficits that have occupied schizophrenia researchers for three decades. Finally, this work has the potential, over the long term, to relate behavioral deficits to underlying biological mechanisms. Our theoretical models have been developed within a framework that seeks to explain cognitive and behavioral phenomena in terms of information processing mechanisms that are plausible at the biological level. While this proposal focuses primarily on the behavioral component of this research, validation of our models in the behavioral studies proposed here will lead directly to a theoretically motivated program of research concerning the biological mechanisms underlying cognitive deficits.
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0.905 |
1992 — 2002 |
Cohen, Jonathan B [⬀] |
P01Activity Code Description: For the support of a broadly based, multidisciplinary, often long-term research program which has a specific major objective or a basic theme. A program project generally involves the organized efforts of relatively large groups, members of which are conducting research projects designed to elucidate the various aspects or components of this objective. Each research project is usually under the leadership of an established investigator. The grant can provide support for certain basic resources used by these groups in the program, including clinical components, the sharing of which facilitates the total research effort. A program project is directed toward a range of problems having a central research focus, in contrast to the usually narrower thrust of the traditional research project. Each project supported through this mechanism should contribute or be directly related to the common theme of the total research effort. These scientifically meritorious projects should demonstrate an essential element of unity and interdependence, i.e., a system of research activities and projects directed toward a well-defined research program goal. |
Core--Protein Chemistry
peptide chemical synthesis; biomedical facility; synthetic protein; high performance liquid chromatography; polymerase chain reaction;
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0.905 |
1994 — 2002 |
Cohen, Jonathan C |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Genetic Determinants of Plasma Lipoproteins @ University of Texas SW Med Ctr/Dallas
Hepatic lipase is a 476 amino acid glycoprotein that catalyzes phospholipid and triglyceride hydrolysis in circulating lipoproteins. Hepatic lipase activity varies widely among individuals, and this variation has been associated with inter-individual differences in the plasma concentrations of high density lipoproteins (HDL), particularly the HDL2 subfraction, the rates of low density lipoprotein (LDL) synthesis and catabolism, and in the size distribution of LDL. Preliminary data from our laboratory suggest that ethnic differences in hepatic lipase activity may also be responsible for the well known differences in plasma HDL concentrations between African American and white American men. Since these studies are based on correlations between phenotypes, however, they are subject to confounding by secondary factors such as obesity and plasma triglyceride concentrations that may have independent effects on hepatic lipase activity and lipoprotein metabolism. Therefore it is difficult to infer from these studies whether or not the relationship between hepatic lipase activity and plasma lipoprotein concentrations is causal. Thus a key question that remains unanswered by these studies is "does primary variation in hepatic lipase activity cause variation in plasma lipoprotein metabolism in humans?" A second question that remains unanswered is what causes the wide variation in hepatic lipase activity observed in otherwise healthy individuals? These two questions provide the focus of this competing continuation. In the first two Specific Aims, we will compare individuals with genetically defined hepatic lipase activities to determine: i) whether genetic variation in hepatic lipase activity accounts for the well known differences in plasma HDL-C concentrations between African American and white men, and ii) whether primary differences in hepatic lipase activity cause differences in plasma lipoproteins. In the third Specific Aim, we will determine whether genetic polymoprhism in hepatic lipase contributes to the very high hepatic lipase activities commonly seen in white Men. These studies will help to determine the role of variation in hepatic lipase activity in determining plasma HDL concentrations, and LDL size distribution, two important risk factors for coronary artery disease.
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0.904 |
1995 — 1997 |
Goddard, Nigel Noll, Douglas Cohen, Jonathan [⬀] Eddy, William (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Computational and Statistical Methods For Analysis of Neuroimaging Datasets @ Carnegie-Mellon University
9418982 Cohen It is currently possible to acquire images of the brain so as to reveal the regions that are active while people are performing particular cognitive tasks. However, massive amounts of data (many successive images ) are produced from these neuroimaging studies, and it is not clear how to efficiently analyze all of the functional information that the data contain. With this award, a research group comprised of a psychologist, statistician, computer scientist and a radiologist (headed by Dr. Jonathan Cohen) will be developing new ways to analyze large sets of neuroimages. They will improve techniques for image reconstruction, expand available statistical tools for image processing, and implement these improvements on a supercomputer. This work should greatly advance the non-invasive analysis of brain function.
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0.943 |
1996 — 1999 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Functional Mri Studies of Prefrontal Cortex @ University of Pittsburgh At Pittsburgh |
0.908 |
1997 — 2002 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
P01Activity Code Description: For the support of a broadly based, multidisciplinary, often long-term research program which has a specific major objective or a basic theme. A program project generally involves the organized efforts of relatively large groups, members of which are conducting research projects designed to elucidate the various aspects or components of this objective. Each research project is usually under the leadership of an established investigator. The grant can provide support for certain basic resources used by these groups in the program, including clinical components, the sharing of which facilitates the total research effort. A program project is directed toward a range of problems having a central research focus, in contrast to the usually narrower thrust of the traditional research project. Each project supported through this mechanism should contribute or be directly related to the common theme of the total research effort. These scientifically meritorious projects should demonstrate an essential element of unity and interdependence, i.e., a system of research activities and projects directed toward a well-defined research program goal. P50Activity Code Description: To support any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical; may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research or R&D effort. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary attack on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area. These grants differ from program project grants in that they are usually developed in response to an announcement of the programmatic needs of an Institute or Division and subsequently receive continuous attention from its staff. Centers may also serve as regional or national resources for special research purposes. |
Mechanisms of Cognitive Control @ Carnegie-Mellon University
This project focuses on the mechanisms involved in cognitive control. By ~control~, we refer to the ability of the cognitive system to flexibly adapt to its behavior to the demands of particular tasks, favoring the processing of task relevant information over other sources of competing information, and mediating task relevant behavior over habitual, or otherwise prepotent responses. The work we propose is a direct extension of our previous efforts to understand and develop explicit models of this function of PFC, and its impairment in schizophrenia. Previously, we have hypothesized that PFC houses a mechanism for representing and maintaining context information. The primary goal of this project is to develop a more detailed theory of PFC function, and its interaction with other cortical systems involved in cognitive control. In particular, we will focus refinements on the mechanisms underlying active maintenance of representations within PFC, the nature of these representations, and the interaction between PFC and hippocampal systems. We will develop and evaluate gated attractor networks as a mechanism for active maintenance of context information. We will evaluate these systems for their ability to a)provide the capacity to maintain context representations in the face of intervening distractor items; b) be implemented using mechanisms that are consistent with data regarding the neuromodulatory functions of dopamine (DA); c)learn to identify and actively store task relevant representation using a reinforcement learning mechanism; d) account for the performance of both normal and schizophrenic subjects in delayed response tasks, and of frontal schizophrenic patients in the Wisconsin Card Sort task. We will also explore the nature of representations within PFC that support its role cognitive control. We will test the following hypotheses: a)Representations within PFC are categorical and combinatorial, and can be used to represent task relevant information at diverse levels of specificity. B)These properties derive directly from the requirement that they be actively maintained. C) The representational scheme in PFC complements that of the posterior neocortex, and can be used to effectively bias processing within the posterior system in accord with task demands. d) Representations with PFC can develop over training in response to task requirements. E) These characteristics can account for normal and impaired performance in neuropsychological tasks classical associated with frontal function, including verbal fluency and object sorting tasks. Finally we will extend our framework in order to account for the role of PFC in more complex cognitive tasks. Specifically, we will develop an integrated model of PFC and hippocampal function, that incorporates an existing model of the latter, and test whether this can account for: a)cognitive control in novel tasks b) the organizational influence of PFC representations over hippocampal storage and episodic memory c) the distinct contributions of PFC and hippocampus to cognitive impairments in neuropsychiatric disorders.
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0.901 |
1997 — 1998 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Advanced Methods For Neuroimaging Data Analysis @ University of Pittsburgh At Pittsburgh
DESCRIPTION (Taken from application abstract): This is an application for a collaborative R01 grant in response to the Human Brain Project PA-96-002. This project will bring together expertise in cognitive neuroscience, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), statistics, and computer science to develop advanced tools for the processing and analysis of neuroimaging datasets. The primary goal of the project is to improve the temporal sensitivity of fMRI measurements of the neural activity associated with cognitive processes, and to improve the methods by which data are processed and analyzed. The project has three immediate goals: 1) the conduct of empirical studies, that will characterize the dynamics of the fMRI signal in response to experimentally controlled manipulation of the intensity and duration of specific sensory and cognitive processes; 2) the development of quantitative statistical models of these effects that will permit more sophisticated and detailed interpretations of fMRI data than previously possible, significantly improving its temporal sensitivity; 3) the implementation of these computational intensive statistical methods of high performance computing platforms. Success in this work will provide valuable new information about the relationship between the fMRI signal and the neurobiological (and cognitive) processes it is used to measure, as well as new methods for exploiting this information to improve the temporal sensitivity of this technique. More broadly, it will form the basis for a longer term effort to develop tools that have potential for wide applicability, both to other hemodynamically-based neuroimaging modalities (such as MR-based perfusion techniques, and PET), and to other content areas, such as studies of clinical and developmental populations. This project represents a tightly-integrated interdisciplinary effort to advance the state-of-the-art neuroimaging methodology along both scientific and technological dimensions. Success will allow us to better characterize the dynamics as well as the anatomic location of functional activity in the brain. This will significantly improve the sophistication of the questions that can be asked, and productively answered, about the neural bases of cognitive functions and their impairment in neuropsychiatric disorders.
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0.905 |
1998 — 2001 |
Johnson, Marcia Gross, Charles (co-PI) [⬀] Cohen, Jonathan (co-PI) [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Acquisition of Core Equipment For Princeton Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience Initiative
9871186 With instrumentation provided by the National Science Foundation Drs. Marcia Johnson, Jonathan Cohen and Charles Gross will establish a Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience (CCBN) at Princeton University. The Center will focus on understanding the brain mechanisms underlying the cognitive and motivational processes that control behavior, as well as the development of new methods for cognitive neuroscientific research. Research at all levels, from the molecular to the behavioral, will explore the brain mechanisms and subsystems underlying higher cognitive functions (such as attention, memory and decision making), and the closely-related affective processes that govern reward and motivation. Of central interest are the ways in which normal behavior is controlled by higher level goals and regulated by states of arousal, motivation and reward, as well as the ways in which these systems can fail. The Center will couple methods developed during one hundred years of research in physiological and cognitive psychology with important new technologies for investigating the brain. This combination promises to open the way to understand functions of the mind once considered intractable, such as how consciousness and thought emerge from the underlying structures of the brain, what biological systems control emotion and behavior, and what chemical, structural and functional anomalies underlie cognitive deficits and psychopathologies. Several complementary approaches will be employed: fMRI and Event-related Potential (ERP) will be used to examine the structure and function of the brain in conscious human subjects performing cognitive tasks designed to analyze higher mental processes. The separate activity of each of multiple brain cells can be measured. Likewise the expression of particular molecules in individual brain cells as a result of engaging in a specific behavior will also be determined. Two closely related laboratories will be included in the CCBN. An Im aging and Modeling Facility (IMF) will house staff and equipment for the analysis of data sets obtained from fMRI and human electrophysiological studies, and for support of neural network simulation modeling. It will also provide facilities for on site ERP, eye movement and pupilometric recording. During the initial phase of Center development, fMRI data will be gathered at a site less than a mile from the Princeton campus and through collaborations with investigators at other institutions. A closely related Neurotechnology (NTF) Facility will support research at the cellular, molecular and biochemical level. The facility will house modern equipment necessary to conduct analyses of neural substrates of behavior at all of these levels in a variety of mammals, from rodents to primates. Central to proposed research at the IMF is a SGI Symmetric Multiprocessor and associated workstations, microcomputers, networking and software. ERP and eye movement recording equipment, including a Neuro Scan 128 channel SYN-AMPS will also be purchased. A Nikon PCM 2000 confocal microscope system and related computer software will be acquired for use by the NTF. Both graduate and undergraduate students will have access to the laboratories and the instrumentation therefore will serve important educational and training functions.
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0.951 |
1998 — 2002 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
P50Activity Code Description: To support any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical; may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research or R&D effort. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary attack on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area. These grants differ from program project grants in that they are usually developed in response to an announcement of the programmatic needs of an Institute or Division and subsequently receive continuous attention from its staff. Centers may also serve as regional or national resources for special research purposes. |
Functional Neuroimaging/Psychopharm--Prefrontal Cortex/Dopamine in Schizophrenia @ University of Pittsburgh At Pittsburgh
Project 1 will draw upon empirical and theoretical tools to address a central component of the Center hypothesis: that disturbances of dopamine (DA) in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) of patients with schizophrenia contribute in specific ways to the cognitive deficits observed in this illness. Studies will build on previous work establishing that patients with schizophrenia demonstrate a selective deficit in the ability to actively maintain and use context information to appropriately guide behavior. We have hypothesized that this deficit arises from a disturbance of DA activity in DLPFC. Although we have generated behavioral evidence in support of this hypothesis, we have not yet established its relationship to deficits of either DLPFC or DA function. The primary focus of this project will be to establish this relationship, which will provide a direct conceptual bridge between the neurobiological mechanisms involved in schizophrenia and their behavioral manifestations. Under Specific Aim 1 we will conduct functional MRI studies of patients with schizophrenia, to examine the relationship between DLPFC function and performance on cognitive tasks that rely on the processing of context. These studies will be conducted in the same subject populations as those used to study eye movement control and morphometry in Project-Sweeney. Furthermore, they will use the same task that will be used in electrophysiological studies of monkey prefrontal cortex in Project-Olson, thus providing more detailed information about the physiological function of regions engaged by task performance. Under Specific Aim 2, we will examine the influence that pharmacological manipulations of DA function have on behavioral performance, providing information about the role of DA in the processing of context,, and a link to studies of the influence of DA on PFC function to be conducted in Project-Zigmond. Under Specific Aim 3, we will construct computational models of DLPFC and FA function that will be used to interpret the anatomical and physiological data generated about these systems in Projects with regard to their influence on the behavioral functions to be studied in our project and Project-Sweeney. Together, these studies should provide critical new information about the relationship between the neural mechanisms that are impaired in schizophrenia, and their impact on behavior in this illness.
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0.905 |
2000 — 2002 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Usability and Interoperability of Neuroimaging Software @ University of Pittsburgh At Pittsburgh
Current fMRI neuroimaging software programs offer the researcher a wealth of analysis methods and tools. However, the incompatibilities in user interface, data format, and computing environment in these tools make it difficult if not impossible for most researchers to take advantage of the full set of tools available for neuroimaging analyses. This software development project will address this problem by creating a common graphical, user friendly environment in which it is easy to incorporate, use and combine analysis tools developed by independent research laboratories. The environment will be a modular, Java-based, CORBA compliant, user extensible client/server architecture with support for parallel processes. Rather than focussing on the development of new analysis tools, we will focus on the development of "software wrappers" which will allow us to substantially improve the interfaces to existing tools without requiring that they themselves be changed. The first specific aim is to write a set of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to existing fMRI analysis programs that will provide easy to use front-ends for the researcher. We will demonstrate the feasibility, flexibility, and usefulness of this approach by creating wrappers for a significant collection of fMRI analysis software, including locally developed packages such as BRAIN, IFIS, and NIS, which are used by a number of independent laboratories within the Pittsburgh neuroimaging community, and extending to include widely used packages such as AIR and AFNI. To facilitate the integration of these fMRI software packages in the common graphical environment, we will develop two support utilities: 1) format conversion routines for common medical imaging formats such as ANALYZE and DICOM, and 2)synthetic dataset generators to help evaluate analysis programs under a variety of test conditions. The second specific aim is to develop a user friendly graphical "Desktop" that permits the researcher to dynamically link together multiple programs, combine them into one processing stream, and, launch these computations on remote servers from desktop (client) machines. This Desktop will be written in Java and will use CORBA to manage the client/server interactions.
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0.905 |
2000 — 2004 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
P50Activity Code Description: To support any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical; may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research or R&D effort. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary attack on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area. These grants differ from program project grants in that they are usually developed in response to an announcement of the programmatic needs of an Institute or Division and subsequently receive continuous attention from its staff. Centers may also serve as regional or national resources for special research purposes. |
Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms of Conflict and Control
There has been remarkably little research on the mechanisms that detect and signal conflict in cognitive processes, and even less on the role of conflict in the allocation of cognitive control. These questions are central both to our understanding of cognitive control. These questions are central both to our understanding of cognitive function, and to its disturbance in neuropsychiatric disease. The objective of this Center will be to identify and characterize the neural mechanisms involved in conflict and the allocation of control. Several convergent approaches, including computational modeling and formal mathematical analysis, cognitive behavioral testing, functional neuroimaging in adult humans and children, and direct neuronal recordings in non-human species will be used to test the following four Center hypotheses: 1) conflict in processing leads to adjustments in cognitive control; 2) the anterior cingulate cortex is selective responsive to conflict; 3) conflict detection and control are subserved by distinct neural systems; and 4) the influence of conflict on control is modulated by reward. The Center is organized into 7 projects and 3 cores led by highly accomplished scientists in the areas of attention (Casey, Posner, Treisman), memory (Cohen, Johnson) decision making (Kahneman, Shaffir), formal modeling (Holmes, Hopfield), and neurophysiology (Aston-Johnson) decision making (Kahneman, Shaffir), formal modeling (Holmes, Hopfield) and neurophysiology (Aston-Jones, Shizgal) from four institutions (Concordia, Cornell University of Pennsylvania and Princeton). Projects 1-4 will use human behavioral testing and neuroimaging (fMRI). Project 5 and 6 will use behavioral tasks paralleling human studies coupled with neurophysiology and neuroanatomy in monkeys and rats. Project 7 will use computational modeling and dynamical systems techniques to analyze neural network models of the tasks employed in the other projects. Three cores will serve the administrative and technical needs of the Center. These will include an Administrative Core to coordinate Center activities and oversee fiscal and reporting functions, a Neuroimaging Core to coordinate resources for conducting neuroimaging studies of human subjects, and a Computational Core to maintain hardware and software platforms necessary to analyze and visualize large-scale neuroimaging datasets and to conduct computational modeling. In addition to its research mission, the Center will also foster training of researchers at all levels, from undergraduates to participating faculty who are expanding their scientific approaches of cross-project collaborations.
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0.908 |
2002 — 2007 |
Kumar, Subodh (co-PI) [⬀] Cohen, Jonathan |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Itr: Digital Hammurabi - High Resolution 3d Imaging of Cuneiform Tablets @ Johns Hopkins University
This proposal is concerned with developing of 3-D scanning methods to be applied to the imaging of cuneiform tablets. This process can make the tablets more readable by "deepening" the marks in tablets badly worn over centuries, thus sharpening the images. The panel gave this proposal a Highly Competitive rating, noting that it was an excellent proposal with innovative work in information technology and the humanities and social sciences. For IT, the impact is the development of a portable, very high resolution surface scanner and the multi-resolution algorithms. For the humanities, the project represents significant work with a potentially very wide application to other other objects with the result of opening up new fields of study to a larger group of scholars. The technology and techniques developed can be imported to other areas of study of ancient cultures and languages.
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0.939 |
2002 — 2021 |
Cohen, Jonathan D (co-PI) [⬀] Norman, Kenneth A [⬀] |
T32Activity Code Description: To enable institutions to make National Research Service Awards to individuals selected by them for predoctoral and postdoctoral research training in specified shortage areas. |
Nrsa Training Grant in Quantitative Neuroscience
This proposal is for the renewal of a predoctoral and postdoctoral Quantitative Neuroscience Training Program (QNTP) at Princeton University. Neuroscience research is becoming increasingly quantitative. Formal theoretical techniques are essential for understanding how complex, large-scale interactions between neurons give rise to thought and behavior, and advanced quantitative methods of data analysis are necessary for addressing the increasingly large, multidimensional data sets generated by modern brain imaging techniques (e.g., multiunit recording, fMRI). These methods are also necessary for future progress to be made in understanding, diagnosing, treating and, ultimately, curing brain disturbances that give rise to psychiatric disorders. Unfortunately, the mathematical and computational skills required to address these needs are not a focus of standard neuroscience curricula. Princeton's QNTP is designed to address this need, by providing the next generation of neuroscientists with the necessary mathematical and computational skills for measuring, analyzing, and modeling brain function. The establishment of the QNTP sparked several developments at Princeton, that (in turn) have accelerated the pace at which the goals of the QNTP are being met. By bringing Princeton's neuroscientists together with faculty in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering, the QNTP helped to spur the formation of the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI) in 2005. The QNTP also helped to inspire the formation (in 2008) of PNI's free-standing PhD Program in Neuroscience, which strongly emphasizes classroom and laboratory training in basic quantitative and computational methods during its first two years. These developments have made it possible for us to refocus the QNTP from its original purpose (providing a foundation in quantitative neuroscience for trainees who are starting out in this area) to providing advanced training in quantitative neuroscience. Specifically, we will take the most quantitatively-focused subset of our predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees and provide them with the additional tools and training that they need to excel in computational neuroscience research. This training will be accomplished via advanced quantitative and computational neuroscience elective courses that were developed for the QNTP and are taught by leaders in the field, as well as participation in research seminars, journal clubs, and career development activities that are designed to deepen the trainees' knowledge and bolster community among the trainees. PNI faculty have made seminal contributions to quantitative neuroscience, ranging from information- theoretic analyses of neuronal spiking and dynamical systems analysis of decision-making to multivariate decoding of human neuroimaging data. The QNTP has been specifically formulated to bring predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees into contact with this expertise and, through this, to catalyze their transformation into full- fledged computational neuroscientists. As with the prior funding period, we are requesting support for four predoctoral trainees and four postdoctoral trainees (with 2 year appointments for each trainee).
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0.908 |
2003 — 2007 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Functional Mri and Modeling Studies of Prefrontal Cortex
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A fundamental challenge in cognitive neuroscience involves the identification of the mechanisms that allow the flexible, goal-directed behavior that characterizes human performance. Our previous work has led to a theory regarding the role of prefrontal cortex (PFC) in guiding behavior in accord with internally represented goals and intentions. Central to this guided activation theory of PFC is the hypothesis that PFC actively maintains goal representations that guide activation in posterior structures responsible for executing task-relevant behavior. This project has two specific aims. First, we will attempt to further our understanding of the rich, interactive dynamics between PFC representations and activity in posterior cortex. In particular, we will try to find support for our claim that PFC representations modulate task processing in posterior cortex in a continuous and direct fashion. Second, we will examine the mechanisms involved in the flexible updating of PFC goal representations in response to cues in the environment. We propose that the medial temporal lobe may play a crucial role in the forming of episodic associations between environmental cues and task goals that are used to establish effective goal representations in PFC. We will study these issues within the context of the task-switching paradigm, an experimental framework that is ideally suited to our purposes because it entails the repeated establishment and shifting of goal representations needed to guide behavioral responses to ambiguous stimuli. We will develop computational models with the aims of (i) demonstrating the power of the guided activation theory of PFC in explaining a wide variety of phenomena reported in the task-switching literature; and of (ii) generating detailed empirical predictions regarding the neurobiological components underlying the functions of interest here. In parallel, we will conduct a series of fMRI and ERP studies to test these predictions, often contrasting them with predictions made by competing theories. Successful execution of this project will result in a much more detailed understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying cognitive control. Importantly, our models may serve as a much desired foundation for more rational approaches to research on the disturbance of these mechanisms in neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, depression, and addiction, all of which are known to be associated with disruptions of cognitive control.
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0.908 |
2003 — 2008 |
Krolik, Julian [⬀] Kumar, Subodh (co-PI) [⬀] Cohen, Jonathan |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Itr--Mhd Turbulence in Black Hole Accretion: a Testbed For Interactive Visualization of Large 3-D Datasets @ Johns Hopkins University
AST-0313031 Krolik
The investigators intend to create the next generation of scientific visualization systems, with particular application to the results of magneto-hydrodynamic simulations of black hole accretion. Complex simulations of this sort require an application which is more flexible and much more easily manipulated by users who are not computer specialists than any existing technique. The new system will emphasize speed and ease of use, and tying system development to a specific scientific problem will ensure that it is realistically designed and well tested. The PIs already have a prototype system, but it requires significant enhancement to become a working tool for scientific analysis, particularly in the areas of interactive data set combination, hierarchical visualization of vector fields, and graphics-hardware-compatible compression and decompression.
Using this interactive system will deepen our understanding of accretion, by showing characteristic timescales and thus which process is dominating the dynamics, by defining the topology of the magnetic field lines, and by enabling investigation of quasi-periodic oscillations. It will also explore the generation of stresses in accretion flows, how energy release is controlled, and where energy is dissipated.
The research will provide a solid basis for user-guided visualization in many other scientific fields, through public availability of the developed system. It will train graduate students in both sophisticated data analysis and computer systems development, and it will expose undergraduates to sophisticated problems.
|
0.939 |
2004 — 2006 |
Greene, Joshua Darley, John (co-PI) [⬀] Cohen, Jonathan [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Emotion and Cognition in Moral Judgment
Drs. Cohen, Darley, and Greene's research funded by NSF on neuroscientific moral psychology was inspired by a puzzling set of moral dilemmas posed by philosophers. Consider the following case: A runaway trolley is headed for five people who will be killed if it proceeds on its present course. The only way to save them is to flip a switch that will turn the trolley onto an alternate set of tracks where it will kill one person instead of five. Ought you to turn the trolley in order to save five people at the expense of one? Most people say yes. Now consider a similar dilemma: As before, a trolley threatens to kill five people. You are standing next to a large stranger on a footbridge spanning the tracks, in between the oncoming trolley and the five people. This time, the only way to save the five people is to push this stranger off the bridge and onto the tracks below. He will die if you do this, but his body will stop the trolley from reaching the others. Ought you to save the five others by pushing this stranger to his death? Most people say no. For over twenty years, moral philosophers have been puzzling over cases such as these, wondering what makes it acceptable to sacrifice lives in some cases but not others. In their research, Drs. Cohen, Darley, and Greene attack these problems from the point of view of social psychology and cognitive neuroscience: What goes on in people's brains that makes them say "yes" to the first case and "no" to the second case? Existing theories of moral psychology suggest strikingly different answers to this question. According to the rationalist tradition in moral psychology, moral judgments are caused by episodes of reasoning and reflection. More specifically, a rationalist would say that people arrive at different answers in these two cases by applying abstract moral principles that explain why these cases are importantly different. A more recent trend in moral psychology places increased emphasis on emotion. According to an emotivist model, differences in emotional response are to explain people's divergent answers in these two cases. Drs. Cohen, Darley, and Greene believe that rationalists and emotivists are both partly correct. Their NSF-supported research is aimed at understanding how emotional and "cognitive" processes interact to produce moral judgments. Their research uses both traditional methods such as questionnaires and measurements of reaction time in conjunction with cutting-edge neuroimaging techniques that allow them to see what is going on in people's brains while they make moral decisions.
This research has natural connections to matters of both private and public concern. First, understanding the psychological and biological bases of human morality is of fundamental humanistic importance. Like research concerning the origins of life on Earth or the large-scale structure of the universe, this research addresses questions that are of intrinsic interest to people around the world. Our capacity for moral judgment is central to our humanity, and yet it is not well understood by science at this time. This research is an important step toward remedying this ignorance. Second, moral judgment is of immense practical importance. Many of the great public debates of our time such as those concerning abortion, stem cell research, the limits of justifiable war, the appropriate response to terrorism, etc. exist because different people have different intuitions about these and other matters of right and wrong. To make progress on these issues it may be useful, if not essential, to understand the psychology and underlying biology that produces moral judgments, and different moral judgments in different people. One of the goals of this research is to study culturally-based differences in moral judgment, which has the additional benefit of ensuring the participation of groups who are underrepresented in American science. This research will also explore differences in moral judgment based on gender and individual temperament. At the same time, however, this research is aimed at understanding that which is universal in human moral judgment.
|
0.951 |
2005 — 2009 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Mechanisms of Context Processing in Schizophrenia @ University of Pittsburgh At Pittsburgh
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This is a competing renewal of an R01 focused on understanding the neural basis of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia. In the previous funding period we tested the hypothesis that schizophrenia patients had a deficit in the representation and maintenance of context, which could account for a range of cognitive disturbances in schizophrenia, and was associated with a disturbance in the function of the prefrontal cortex. Our results have been strongly supportive of these hypotheses, and in addition suggest that the prefrontal deficits in schizophrenia may be functionally and anatomically specific. Specifically, it appears that while context processing functions of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DDLPFC) are impaired other functions within working memory, such as phonological rehearsal processes associated with the function of posterior ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC) are intact. The goal of the renewal is to extend our understanding of the functional anatomy of impaired cognition in schizophrenia by pursing 2 aims. The first Aim is to use event-related fMRI and 3 cognitive tasks to test the hypothesis that impaired cognitive control in schizophrenia primarily involves functional disturbances of the DLPFC and anterior cingulate cortex, 2 highly interconnected regions of the frontal lobe which appear to contribute complementary functions to the regulation of cognitive control, while more superior and inferior frontal regions are functionally intact. The second Aim is to use multiple methods from cognitive neuroscience, including computational modeling, event-related fMRI and high density ERP, to better characterize the functional contribution of one (1) of the above regions, the ACC, to impaired cognitive control in schizophrenia. The studies will be completed in never medicated first episode schizophrenia patients, to address potential confounds of medications and chronicity. Successful completion of this work will increase our understanding of the functional anatomy and mechanisms of cognitive dysfunction in schizophrenia that should help guide the development of treatments for this disabling and relatively treatment refractory aspect of the illness.
|
0.905 |
2005 — 2009 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
P50Activity Code Description: To support any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical; may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research or R&D effort. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary attack on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area. These grants differ from program project grants in that they are usually developed in response to an announcement of the programmatic needs of an Institute or Division and subsequently receive continuous attention from its staff. Centers may also serve as regional or national resources for special research purposes. |
Cognitive and Neural Mechanisms of Decision and Control
[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project will study the optimization of speeded decisions, and the control and monitoring mechanisms that serve this optimization by balancing performance costs and benefits. These lines of work will be pursued under two specific aims. First, we will build on theoretical work from the previous period, which used the drift diffusion model and neural network modeling to produce detailed predictions about behavior and the dynamics of neural mechanisms underlying control. Here, we aim to test these predictions using behavioral, fMRI, and electrophysiological techniques, in coordination with continued modeling and analysis work in Project 6. These studies will address two-alternative forced choice tasks in which speeded decisions must be made between a correct (rewarded) and incorrect (unrewarded) alternative, tasks that will also be explored within human developmental and non-human primate populations in Projects 2, 4, and 5. In a second, complementary line of work, we will extend our investigation to decisions that require a more graded evaluation of the relative costs and benefits of alternative courses of action. Many decisions do not involve a simple choice between correct vs. incorrect (rewarded vs. unrewarded) alternatives, but rather require an evaluation of the relative costs and benefits of the options. We will use behavioral, imaging, electrophysiological, and pupillometric methods to characterize the neural mechanisms involved in evaluating costs and benefits in such circumstances, and how these evaluations are combined to compute utility and control decision-making within and between tasks. Experiments in this second line of studies will parallel developmental studies in Project 4 and neurophysiological studies in Project 5 examining the decision between a well-defined alternative versus the opportunity to explore other alternatives. [unreadable] [unreadable]
|
0.908 |
2005 — 2009 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
P50Activity Code Description: To support any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical; may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research or R&D effort. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary attack on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area. These grants differ from program project grants in that they are usually developed in response to an announcement of the programmatic needs of an Institute or Division and subsequently receive continuous attention from its staff. Centers may also serve as regional or national resources for special research purposes. |
Proj 6: Formal Models For the Neurodynamics of Decision-Making (P. 284 - 302) |
0.908 |
2005 — 2009 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
P50Activity Code Description: To support any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical; may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research or R&D effort. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary attack on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area. These grants differ from program project grants in that they are usually developed in response to an announcement of the programmatic needs of an Institute or Division and subsequently receive continuous attention from its staff. Centers may also serve as regional or national resources for special research purposes. |
Proj 5: Role of Locus Coeruleus in Decision Outcome (P. 261 - 283) |
0.908 |
2005 — 2009 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
P50Activity Code Description: To support any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical; may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research or R&D effort. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary attack on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area. These grants differ from program project grants in that they are usually developed in response to an announcement of the programmatic needs of an Institute or Division and subsequently receive continuous attention from its staff. Centers may also serve as regional or national resources for special research purposes. |
Core 3: Computational Core (P. 335 - 350) |
0.908 |
2005 — 2009 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
P50Activity Code Description: To support any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical; may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research or R&D effort. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary attack on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area. These grants differ from program project grants in that they are usually developed in response to an announcement of the programmatic needs of an Institute or Division and subsequently receive continuous attention from its staff. Centers may also serve as regional or national resources for special research purposes. |
Core 2: Neuroimaging Core (P. 315 - 334) |
0.908 |
2005 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
P50Activity Code Description: To support any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical; may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research or R&D effort. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary attack on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area. These grants differ from program project grants in that they are usually developed in response to an announcement of the programmatic needs of an Institute or Division and subsequently receive continuous attention from its staff. Centers may also serve as regional or national resources for special research purposes. |
Core 1: Administrative Core (P. 303 - 314) |
0.908 |
2005 — 2009 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
P50Activity Code Description: To support any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical; may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research or R&D effort. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary attack on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area. These grants differ from program project grants in that they are usually developed in response to an announcement of the programmatic needs of an Institute or Division and subsequently receive continuous attention from its staff. Centers may also serve as regional or national resources for special research purposes. |
Proj 4: Dynamics of Decision Making and Control in Development (P. 237 - 260) |
0.908 |
2005 — 2009 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
P50Activity Code Description: To support any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical; may involve ancillary supportive activities such as protracted patient care necessary to the primary research or R&D effort. The spectrum of activities comprises a multidisciplinary attack on a specific disease entity or biomedical problem area. These grants differ from program project grants in that they are usually developed in response to an announcement of the programmatic needs of an Institute or Division and subsequently receive continuous attention from its staff. Centers may also serve as regional or national resources for special research purposes. |
Proj 1: Human Studies of Optimality and Performance Monitoring (P. 149 - 183)
This project will study the optimization of speeded decisions, and the control and monitoring mechanisms that serve this optimization by balancing performance costs and benefits. These lines of work will be pursued under two specific aims. First, we will build on theoretical work from the previous period, which used the drift diffusion model and neural network modeling to produce detailed predictions about behavior and the dynamics of neural mechanisms underlying control. Here, we aim to test these predictions using behavioral, fMRI, and electrophysiological techniques, in coordination with continued modeling and analysis work in Project 6. These studies will address two-alternative forced choice tasks in which speeded decisions must be made between a correct (rewarded) and incorrect (unrewarded) alternative, tasks that will also be explored within human developmental and non-human primate populations in Projects 2, 4, and 5. In a second, complementary line of work, we will extend our investigation to decisions that require a more graded evaluation of the relative costs and benefits of alternative courses of action. Many decisions do not involve a simple choice between correct vs. incorrect (rewarded vs. unrewarded) alternatives, but rather require an evaluation of the relative costs and benefits of the options. We will use behavioral, imaging, electrophysiological, and pupillometric methods to characterize the neural mechanisms involved in evaluating costs and benefits in such circumstances, and how these evaluations are combined to compute utility and control decision making within and between tasks. Experiments in this second line of studies will parallel developmental studies in Project 4 and neurophysiological studies in Project 5 examining the decision between a well-defined alternative versus the opportunity to explore other alternatives.
|
0.908 |
2006 — 2010 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Neural Mechanisms and Social Influence in Delay Discounting and Impulsive Choice
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The work described in this proposal seeks to further our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying impulsivity, and their modulation by social influences. Impulsivity lies at the heart of a large number of maladaptive behaviors, ranging from ones common in every day life (e.g., bad eating habits, and failures to adequately save) to ones closely associated with clinical disorders such as drug addiction, ADHD and aggressive behavior. The propensity for impulsivity varies substantially over the life cycle, as does its susceptibility to social influences (such as authority figures, peer-pressure, and advertising). We will study impulsivity in the context of intertemporal decision making. Intertemporal decisions involve choices between two rewards available at different times. It is well recognized that people discount rewards more steeply over the near term than over longer terms. That is, rewards that are available immediately have disproportionately high value to us, and delaying them (e.g., by a week) devalues rewards substantially more than when a similar delay is imposed on future rewards (e.g., from one week to two weeks). One explanation for this behavior is that human discounting involves two separate systems, one that heavily devalues the future, and another that is more sensitive to future reward. In previous work, we have found evidence that distinguishable neural mechanisms may be associated with each of these systems, and that their relative activity correlates with the choices that people make between immediate and future rewards. In this proposal, we will conduct studies to refine our understanding of these neural mechanisms, their relationship to intertemporal choice, to individual differences in impulsivity, and their modulation by social influences. Under our first two aims, we seek to manipulate each system individually, in an effort to isolate the contributions that each makes to intertemporal choice. Under a third aim, we will examine the influence that social factors have on the functioning of these mechanisms, in an effort to better understand the mechanisms that mediate social influences on impulsive behavior. An understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying impulsivity, and how these are impacted by social influences, promises to provide insights that will be useful in designing interventions, both at the individual and social levels that better mitigate the costs of impulsivity to the individual and society.
|
0.908 |
2008 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
S10Activity Code Description: To make available to institutions with a high concentration of NIH extramural research awards, research instruments which will be used on a shared basis. |
Expansion of a Computing Facility For Fmri and Neuroimaging Analysis
[unreadable] DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The mission of Princeton's Center for the Study of Brain, Mind and Behavior (CSBMB) is to support multidisciplinary research on the neural mechanisms underlying mental function. Center researchers come from a variety of disciplines, including mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, neuroscience and psychology. A primary focus of their work has been the use of fMRI to study the pattern and dynamics of brain activity associated with mental functions such as visual perception, attention, working memory, long term episodic memory, and decision making. CSBMB investigators have been at the forefront of this field, including the development of new methods for analyzing fMRI data. For example, they have led the development of multivariate methods of pattern analysis, and have demonstrated their ability to distinguish between cognitive states not possible using standard methods of analysis. These new methods require larger datasets, and substantial expansion of the raw data, placing increasingly heavy demands on computational resources. At the same time, growing interest in these efforts has attracted additional investigators to the CSBMB and its facilities. This has been further accelerated by the recent formation of Princeton's Neuroscience Institute and its plans for faculty expansion. These developments are placing strains on the CSBMB's computing facilities, the current limits of which are beginning to constrain the research efforts of CSBMB investigators. In this proposal, we request support to expand this facility by substantially increasing the storage capacity of its file server, and upgrading bandwidth on network connections used to access this server. The CSBMB and the University have committed to match these requests with an expansion of the memory for the CSBMB compute server, and to continue to cover all expenses for the maintenance and support of this computing facility. [unreadable] [unreadable] Work supported by the CSBMB aims to deepen our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying mental functions that are disturbed in a wide range of clinical conditions, including depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, neurological impairments, aging, and drug addiction. CSBMB investigators are supported, in this work, by grants from a number of NIH institutes, including NIMH, NINDS, NIDA, NIA and NIE. Progress in this work promises to lead to more sophisticated and more effective approaches to the diagnosis, treatment and ultimately cure of mental disease, in just the way that our understanding of basic mechanisms of cardiovascular function have led to more sophisticated and effective treatment of heart disease. The current proposal will support the research efforts of CSBMB investigators by providing them with the technological infrastructure necessary to pursue more sophisticated neuroimaging studies, to conduct more detailed analyses of the data they generate, and to construct more realistic models of neural function used to interpret these findings. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]
|
0.908 |
2009 |
Zayed, Ahmed Cohen, Jonathan |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Twenty Years of Wavelets; Chicago, Il, Spring 2009
This award will provide support to defray expenses of researchers participating in the Conference ``Twenty Years of Wavelets" that will take place May 15-17, 2009 at DePaul University, Chicago, IL. Support will be provided to participants who do not currently hold NSF awards, with exceptions made for some plenary speakers. It is understood that much of the funding will be directed to graduate students, postdocs, and junior faculty but that certain senior participants will be funded as well.
The program will feature about thirteen invites speakers, who will deliver one-hour lectures, and a number of contributed talks. The principal objective of this conference is to provide a forum for presentation of the current state of the art of the theory of wavelets as well as for dissemination of recent results and discussion of outstanding problems. Another, equally important, objective towards this end is to involve young mathematicians, female mathematicians, and mathematicians from other under-represented groups. Several junior scientists and graduate students are expected to participate at the meeting.
|
0.961 |
2012 — 2015 |
Li, Kai (co-PI) [⬀] Norman, Kenneth (co-PI) [⬀] Turk-Browne, Nicholas (co-PI) [⬀] Lee, Ray Cohen, Jonathan [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Mri: Acquisition of High Performance Compute Cluster For Multivariate Real-Time and Whole-Brain Correlation Analysis of Fmri Data
This Major Research Instrumentation award permits Dr. Jonathan Cohen and four co-investigators to purchase a high-performance computing instrumentation (3,584 cores; 2TB/core; 100TB flash storage) to be used by faculty, postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates within the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI). The instrumentation will allow the analysis of human brain imaging data at a speed and scale not previously possible.
The collaborating researchers are cognitive neuroscientists and computer scientists at Princeton with complementary expertise in human brain imaging and large scale computing. Two primary research objectives are proposed, building on recent progress in applying multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) methods from machine learning to detect neural signals that correspond to internal mental states, such as perceptions, memories and intentions that are otherwise not accessible to direct observation. To date, use of MVPA has been restricted to the "offline" analyses" after data have been fully collected. However, a growing and powerful use of brain imaging is to give participants feedback about their brain states in real time, allowing them to use this information to better control brain function (e.g., providing feedback about pain areas as a way of learning to control chronic pain). Such real-time feedback methods could be greatly enhanced by adding MVPA. However, this has been computationally intractable until now. Objective 1 addresses this challenge, by inserting a high performance computing system into the brain scanning pipeline. This will be tested in an experiment that uses MVPA to detect patterns of brain activity associated with sustained attention, allowing us to provide real-time brain-based feedback to improve attentional abilities (with potential educational and health benefits).
Objective 2 focuses on another major advance in brain imaging, in which correlations between areas of activity are analyzed, rather than areas of activity in isolation of one another. Such correlations - often referred to as "functional connectivity" - are likely to reveal more about how the brain actually functions, by providing critical information about the interactions between areas. At present, virtually all approaches to functional connectivity focus on the correlations among a limited set of brain areas of interest. However, a more powerful approach would be to examine the correlation of every area with all others. This requires computing the whole-brain correlation matrix. The analysis of such high dimensional data would be further enhanced by applying MVPA to patterns of correlation. However, doing this further increases computational demands. Applying this approach to a routine brain imaging dataset, using currently available instrumentation, would take 880 years to complete. The work under Objective 2 addresses this challenge, by coupling massively parallel computing with sophisticated software optimizations. Doing so can bring previously intractable problems into the range of practicality. These methods will be tested in an experiment that seeks to identify neural representations of intentions, and their influence on brain mechanisms responsible for executing these intentions.
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0.951 |
2013 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
S10Activity Code Description: To make available to institutions with a high concentration of NIH extramural research awards, research instruments which will be used on a shared basis. |
Hpc For Quantitative and Computational Neuroscience
DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This proposal requests a new high-performance computing (HPC) system for the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI). This is needed to meet both the growing user base and the rapid growth in data analysis and storage demands of leading edge neuroscientific research. The PNI's mission is to support multidisciplinary research on the neural mechanisms underlying mental functions such as perception, attention, memory, learning, decision making, and cognitive control. PNI places a strong emphasis on the development of formally rigorous theory, and quantitatively sophisticated approaches to the analysis of neuroscientific data. Their work makes use of state-of-the-art methods for recording neural activity at all levels of analysis, from single- and multi-unit recordings of neurons in non human species to whole brain fMRI and EEG studies in humans. The size of the data sets generated by these methods has grown explosively over the last decade, and the methods needed to analyze them have become increasingly computationally demanding. At the same time, the PNI user base has grown and will continue to grow substantially over the next several years, from 15 at its inception in 2005, to 21 at present, and to an expected 26 as it occupies its new building presently under construction (and due for occupancy in 2013). These factors have conspired to place severe strains on existing PNI computing facilities, the limits of which are now constraining the research efforts of its investigators. To meet these needs, this proposal requests support for a new HPC system comprised of a 52 node cluster (with 832 cores) and a 540 TB storage system. This new system will be housed in Princeton University's newly constructed High Performance Computing Research Center (HPCRC), co-administered with the Princeton Institute for Computational Science and Engineering (PICSciE), and linked to other powerful computing systems at the HPCRC by way of a high performance GPFS storage grid. This will allow PNI investigators to leverage the availability of considerable additional CPU power at the HPCRC with transparent access to their data, as well as the expertise of PICSciE staff in parallel computing. Work supported by the PNI aims to deepen our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying mental functions that are disturbed in a wide range of clinical conditions, including depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, neurological impairments, aging, and drug addiction. PNI investigators are supported, in this work, by grants from a number of NIH institutes, including NIMH, NINDS, NIDA, NIA and NEI. Progress in this work promises to lead to more sophisticated and more effective approaches to the diagnosis, treatment and ultimately cure of mental disease. The current proposal will support the research efforts of PNI investigators by providing them with the technological infrastructure necessary to pursue more sophisticated neuroscientific studies, to conduct more detailed analyses of the data they generate, and to construct more realistic models of neural function used to interpret these findings.
|
0.908 |
2015 — 2018 |
Cohen, Jonathan Puvirajah, Anton (co-PI) [⬀] Calandra, Brendan Renken, Maggie |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Strategies: Acquainting Metro Atlanta Youth With Stem (Amays) @ Georgia State University Research Foundation, Inc.
The Acquainting Metro Atlanta Youth with STEM (AMAYS) program is designed to engage traditionally underserved middle-school students in performance-based relevant experiences that: (1) incorporate the STEM-related skills, knowledge and practices represented in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) workforce and (2) motivate and build participant interest in pursuing related ICT career trajectories. In summer and afterschool AMAYS programs in five sites, participants will create ICT products as preparation for statewide ICT competitions. Students will collaborate with each other and with mentors from business and industry, who will be recruited through a partnership with the Technology Association of Georgia. The project will be implemented through the After-School All Stars program in Atlanta, which operates in multiple sites in the Atlanta, Georgia in close collaboration with the public schools.
AMAYS is a design-based research project involving the creation, implementation and evaluation of a unique ICT-rich informal learning environment (ILE) that combines elements of culturally relevant pedagogy, informal STEM learning and the use of computer game design principles. The project will iteratively design program experiences and resources and investigate to what extent the project: (1) positively affects participant perceptions of and interest in STEM-ICT careers and (2) develops related disciplinary knowledge and skills. Intended outcomes will be assessed through cognitive measures of participant ability to think scientifically and affective measures of participant affinity for the field/profession. Qualitative methods for data collection and analysis will also be used for formative evaluation of the project. Research findings and resources (including curriculum and research/evaluation tools) will be broadly disseminated to educational researchers and practitioners.
|
0.93 |
2016 — 2019 |
Oliver, Matthew (co-PI) [⬀] Oliver, Matthew (co-PI) [⬀] Cohen, Jonathan [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Polar (Nsf 15-114): Using Polar Science Data to Evaluate Media Claims in the Undergraduate Classroom
This award supports efforts to leverage the extensive National Science Foundation investment in polar sciences, polar infrastructure, and science education research and development to promote an informed citizenry and the next generation of polar scientists. It responds to the objectives outlined in DCL 15-114.
The University of Delaware (UD), will convert the Spring offering of an existing large-enrollment, non-major environmental science course into a course that is polar-focused, student-centered and employs a data-intensive active-learning pedagogy. The Fall offering of this course will continue to be a traditional lecture course. In the Spring course offering, students will work directly with polar data in an introductory R-based programing framework and use these data to evaluate media claims about polar regions. Students will also experience the human dimension of polar research through interactions with a range of polar scientists. Over the course of the project, ~170 non-major students will be immersed in polar science through this data-driven course. The impact of this project will extend well beyond the award period through continued offerings at UD and through development of at least twenty data visualizations and three Problem-Based-Learning (PBL) problems. The course will be delivered three times over three years, with yearly revision based on assessments of student learning, faculty performance, and workshops with a cohort of UD polar scientists and active-learning researchers. They will compare student learning using the active-learning pedagogy to student learning via the traditional lecture course. Results will be disseminated to a broad network of educators and researchers through a collaborative polar science outreach network and through active-learning databases, e.g., PBL Clearinghouse, Science Education Resource Center (SERC), and the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science.
|
0.961 |
2018 |
Cohen, Jonathan D [⬀] |
R25Activity Code Description: For support to develop and/or implement a program as it relates to a category in one or more of the areas of education, information, training, technical assistance, coordination, or evaluation. |
Princeton Neuroscience Institute Summer Internship Program
PROJECT ABSTRACT This proposal is to support undergraduate participants in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute Summer Internship Program. The PNI summer undergraduate research program is geared towards undergraduates who have a strong passion for scientific research and are seriously considering graduate studies in neuroscience. This summer internship provides both education and hands-on research experience in the field of neuroscience. Participants closely collaborate with students and faculty at PNI on original research projects, and thereby gain invaluable first-hand experience as a practicing neuroscientist in a top tier laboratory. PNI summer interns also participate in collective educational activities, including weekly foundational lectures created by PNI faculty specifically for the interns, as well as lab meetings, journal club reading groups, and special forums on topics such as career advice and graduate school application preparation. Princeton has welcomed summer undergraduate students since 2013, and with this proposal, we intend to build upon the successes of the past to establish a comprehensive program to prepare undergraduate students for a career in neuroscience. We will identify promising students, from other institutions, during their sophomore and junior year. We will then provide a structure for these students to have a total experience to make them competitive for a research career in neuroscience.
|
0.908 |
2019 — 2021 |
Cohen, Jonathan [⬀] |
F30Activity Code Description: Individual fellowships for predoctoral training which leads to the combined M.D./Ph.D. degrees. |
Nociceptors Are Sufficient For Cutaneous Inflammation @ University of Pittsburgh At Pittsburgh
PROJECT SUMMARY The skin serves a dual function as an immunological barrier and a sensory interface between the body and environment. Protection against invading pathogens is accomplished by coordinated interactions between immune cells in the skin whose aberrant activity can provoke pathologic inflammation. Increasing evidence has demonstrated a unique role of pain sensing fibers, or nociceptors, in cutaneous immune responses. Briefly, Trpv1+ nociceptors were found to be required for IL-23-dependant production of IL-17 by dermal gamma delta and CD4 T-cells. Mice deficient in these nociceptors are more susceptible to C. albicans skin infection but have diminished pathology in an IMQ mouse model of Type-17 psoriasaform inflammation. The requirement of nociceptors for cutaneous immunity suggests that neuronal activation by itself may be sufficient to affect the balance between protective host defense and pathologic inflammation. To test the sufficiency of nociceptors for skin inflammation, we developed an optogenetic murine model which allows for selective activation of nociceptors with high temporal and spatial precision. We found that activation of Trpv1+ nerves is sufficient for skin inflammation involving production of IL-23, IL-6, and TNF? and infiltration of IL-17 producing T-cells. Interestingly, activation of distinct nociceptors expressing MrgprD induces expression of Type-2 but not Type-17 cytokines. Taken together, the sufficiency of nociceptors to modulate cutaneous immunity highlights nociceptors as a therapeutic target to enhance host defense or limit pathologic inflammation in the skin. We hypothesize that activation of Trpv1+ nociceptors is sufficient to activate a cascade of events starting with CGRP activation of cDC2 which in turn release cytokines that induce IL-17 production from T-cells. We anticipate that this Type-17 immune response will provide protection to epicutaneous S. aureus infection. Finally, we hypothesize that induction of Type-17 immunity is specific for Trpv1+ nociceptors whereas activation of MrgprD-expressing fibers will be sufficient for Type-2 immune responses. We will address these questions in three specific aims. Aim 1: Test the hypothesis that Trpv1+ nociceptor activation drives IL-23, IL-6 and TNF? secretion from cDC2. Trpv1-Ai32(Chr2-YFP) mice will be cutaneously photostimulated. Tissue will be analyzed by flow cytometry and qPCR for IL-23, IL-6 and TNF?. Finally, a series bone marrow chimeras will be generated allowing for the depletion of cDC2 to demonstrate functional non-redundancy. Aim 2: Test the hypothesis that Trpv1+ nociceptors are sufficient and required for host-protection against S. aureus infection. Mice with ablation of Trpv1+ nociceptors or photostimulated Trpv1-Ai32 mice will be epicutaneously infected with S. aureus. CFU and immune parameters for Type-17 inflammation will be analyzed by flow cytometry. Aim 3: Test the hypothesis that MrgprD+ nociceptors are sufficient for Type-2 inflammation. MrgprD-Ai32 mice will be optogenetically activated and assayed for Type-2 inflammation by flow cytometry and mRNA expression.
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0.948 |
2019 — 2020 |
Cohen, Jonathan D |
R21Activity Code Description: To encourage the development of new research activities in categorical program areas. (Support generally is restricted in level of support and in time.) |
Psyneulink: a Block Modeling Environment For Cognitive Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry
Project Summary Paralleling the growth of neuroscience research, there has been an explosion in the development of computationally explicit models of the functions of core brain subsystems. Unfortunately, however, there has not been a commensurate development of the tools needed to share, validate, and compare such models, or integrate them into models of system-level function. Such sharing, evaluation, and integration are necessary if computational modeling efforts are to be useful not only in generating reliable and accurate accounts of how brain subsystems operate, but also of how they interact to give rise to higher cognitive functions, and how disruptions of such interactions may give rise to disturbances of mental function observed in psychiatric and neurological disorders. This proposal seeks to meet this need by developing PsyNeuLink: an open source, Python-based software environment that makes it easy to create new models, import and/or re-implement existing ones, integrate these within a single software environment that will facilitate head-to-head comparison of comparable models, the assembly of complementary models into system-level models, and serve as a common repository for the documentation and dissemination of such models for both research and didactic purposes (i.e., publication, education, etc.). These goals will be pursued under two Specific Aims: 1) Extend the scope of modeling efforts that PsyNeuLink can accommodate by: i) enhancing its application programmer interface (API) used to add new components and interfaces to statistical analysis tools and other modeling environments (such as PyTorch, Emergent and ACT-R; ii) enriching its Library by adding PsyNeuLink implementations of influential models of neural subsystems; and iii) developing a publicly available workbook of simulation exercises as both an introduction to PsyNeuLink and for use in Cognitive Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry curricula. 2) Accelerate PsyNeuLink by developing a custom compiler that preserves its simplicity and flexibility, while dramatically increasing its speed, to make it suitable for simulation of large and complex system-level models, and for parameter estimation, model fitting, and model comparison. This project will exploit the power and accelerating use of Python, and modern just-in-time compilation methods to develop a tool designed specifically for the needs of systems-level Cognitive Neuroscience and Computational Psychiatry. This promises to open up new opportunities for research at the systems-level ? a level of analysis that is crucial both for understanding how human mental function emerges from the interplay among neural subsystems, and how disturbances of individual neural subsystems impact this interplay, disruptions of which are almost certainly a critical factor in neurologic and psychiatric disorders.
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0.908 |
2020 — 2022 |
Cohen, Jonathan (co-PI) [⬀] Oliver, Matthew [⬀] Oliver, Matthew [⬀] |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Collaborative Research: Ehr-Polar Dcl: Addressing the Technical and Narrative Challenges in the Undergraduate Science Classroom
Researchers at the University of Delaware (UD) and at Colgate University will revise and implement a course on polar science in the media. The course will equip students with the technical skills, including computer programming skills taught using a pair-programming approach, to evaluate geoscience data reported in the media and will place this data within a personal context using narratives that convey scientific information. Over the course of the project, ~100 non-geoscience major students will be immersed in a student-centered, data-driven course. Evaluations will focus on improving students' ability to analyze and understand the implications of data and on the transferability of the course materials to different institutions. The impact of this project will extend well beyond the award period through continued offerings at UD and Colgate University, by distributing the course and pedagogy content through the NSF-sponsored Science Education Resource Center (SERC) as the primary conduit to geoscience educators and through professional development workshops offered to new and existing geoscience instructors at major geoscience conferences.
A new polar science course for non-STEM majors will be designed and implemented. The course is based on a combination of cognitivism and constructivism and with quantitative metrics for assessing student progress on technical and narrative challenges. Evaluations will address the hypothesis that student exposure to a pair-programming pedagogy will improve their technical data access and interpretation skills and the hypothesis that students exposed to developed narrative structure exercises will demonstrate improved perspective-taking skills and will be able to demonstrate better understanding the narrative context in which the data are presented. The project is co-funded by the Office of Polar Programs and the Division of Undergraduate Education.
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.
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0.961 |
2020 — 2021 |
Cohen, Jonathan (co-PI) [⬀] Griffiths, Thomas |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Rapid: the Effect of a Crisis On Intertemporal Choice
Every day people have to choose between getting something immediately or getting something even better in the future. Saving for a vacation, retirement planning, and even working towards completing a large project all require foregoing immediate rewards to achieve long-term goals. Psychologists, neuroscientists, and economists have studied how people make these decisions, exploring how the weight put on the present and the future vary across individuals and their situations. Crises, such as the spread of COVID-19 in the United States, involve a unique configuration of stresses that may influence the way that people think about the present and the future. In such crises, short-term thinking can have detrimental consequences.
The research team is exploiting a unique and urgent opportunity to document how people?s choice between immediate and delayed rewards changes during a crisis. In January 2020 the team collected a large dataset on inter-temporal choice from over 3,000 participants. The researchers are using this dataset as a baseline for examining how people shift between long-term and short-term during the COVID-19 crisis. Heterogeneous infection rates and remediation strategies in different regions provide an unprecedented natural experiment for examining the impact of these factors on how people make decisions. By collecting an equivalent dataset at multiple points in the progress of the crisis, together with information about local conditions and stress levels, the reseaach team can can explore how these factors influence people?s decisions.
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.
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0.951 |
2020 — 2021 |
Cohen, Jonathan [⬀] Bhattacharjee, Abhishek (co-PI) [⬀] Willke, Theodore |
N/AActivity Code Description: No activity code was retrieved: click on the grant title for more information |
Nsf Convergence Accelerator - Track D: a Standardized Model Description Format For Accelerating Convergence in Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Machine Learning and Beyond
The NSF Convergence Accelerator supports use-inspired, team-based, multidisciplinary efforts that address challenges of national importance and will produce deliverables of value to society in the near future. Accelerating convergence in science and technology depends on the ability to represent and share not only data, but also theories and models in the most objective, transparent, and reproducible way possible. This project will develop a Model Description Format (MDF) that can be used for computational models that span from neuroscience and psychology to machine learning, and that can serve as the foundation for extensions that serve an even broader scope of models in population biology and the social sciences.
Such an MDF would have numerous benefits, both scientific and technological, including: dissemination and validation of model reproducibility; migration of models across domains (e.g., use of models of brain function in machine learning applications); integration of models at different levels of analysis (e.g., biophysically-realistic neural models into models of cognitive function, cognitive models as agents in population level models); exploitation of complementary strengths of existing packages (e.g., design in a familiar environment but execute in one with better tools for parameter tuning and/or data-fitting); and more efficient development of new tools, by providing developers with a representative diversity of models, all in a common format.
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.
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0.951 |