Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study
Encyclopedia
The Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study brings together researchers from many disciplines to study the phenomenon known as mind
. An academic unit of George Mason University
, the Institute for Advanced Study also serves as a center for doctoral education in such areas as neuroscience and computational social science. Research at the Institute is funded by agencies such as the National Institutes of Health
, the National Science Foundation
and the Department of Defense
.
The Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study of George Mason University
was chartered in 1990 as a result of a bequest from Shelley Krasnow, a long-time resident of the National Capital Area. The work of the Institute began in 1993 with a scientific conference, co-sponsored with The Santa Fe Institute
(SFI) and hosted at George Mason University. This conference on "The Mind, the Brain, and Complex Adaptive Systems" brought together an unusual group of scientists including two Nobel laureates (Murray Gell-Mann
and Herbert Simon
) and produced new approaches to this frontier in addition to a book published by SFI.
These efforts set the Institute on the path of human cognition within the context of this nexus: the intersection of neuroscience, cognitive psychology and computer sciences.
Today, the Institute for Advanced Study is home to a scientific community of 100 (many of them Ph.D.’s) all of whom are also either faculty or trainees at George Mason University
. The range of their research on cognition spans from molecules to mind. The Institute is housed in a dedicated 60000 square feet (5,574.2 m²) facility on the Fairfax Campus of George Mason which includes extensive wet-laboratories, computer labs, a 3T MRI human brain imaging center, a cellular imaging facility, as well as faculty offices and breakout space. Additional space on the Fairfax campus houses the Institute's Center for Social Complexity.The Institute's facility will be expanded to 90000 square feet (8,361.3 m²) with a new wing to house the Institute's Centers and academic programs.
. It houses two Mason academic departments: Molecular Neuroscience
and the Department of Computational Social Science and plays a key role in two doctoral interdisciplinary doctoral programs, one in neuroscience and the other in social complexity.
The Institute recently hosted the kick-off event for a new initiative, "The Decade of the Mind
" which will urge the U.S. Congress to invest in understanding how mind emerges from brain.
The Institute also recently entered into a close collaboration with the Janelia Farm Campus of Howard Hughes Medical Institute
, the Allen Institute for Brain Science
and the National Institutes of Health
to develop better methods of reconstructing neuronal architectures.
Krasnow investigators seek to provide the research bases that may lead to cures to some of the most devastating brain diseases.
Adaptive Systems Laboratory
Human brain
s do many tasks much better than the fastest silicon computers—even with much slower components. These applications range from facial recognition to adaptive exploratory behavior
(such as a planetary robot might be expected to perform). The overall goal of the Adaptive Systems Laboratory is to identify and analyze the critical properties of complex adaptive systems, the brain
being one example, using agent-based modeling
and evolutionary computation
methods.
Center for Neural Dynamics
Krasnow scientists are helping create novel descriptions of how connected nerve cells interact to create behavior. They have been instrumental in applying techniques from the control of erratic chaotic systems to neuronal networks in an effort to lay a foundation for the eventual control of dynamical diseases such as epilepsy
and Parkinson's Disease
. This work has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health
and the Whitaker Foundation.
The Center for Neural Informatics, Neural Structures, and Neural Plasticity (CN3)
The Center for Neural Informatics, Neural Structures, and Neural Plasticity (CN3) pursues fundamental breakthroughs in neuroscience by fostering neuroinformatic and computational approaches to neuroplasticity
and neuroanatomy
. By bringing together faculty expertise in these multiple disciplines, the Center provides opportunities for cross-training in neuroscience
, psychology
, and engineering
, both at the graduate and postdoctoral levels. CN3 researchers investigate the relationship between brain
structure, activity, and function from the subcellular to the network level, with a specific focus on the biophysical and biochemical mechanisms of learning
and memory
. In the long term, we seek to create large-scale, biologically plausible network models of entire portions of the mammalian brain, such as the hippocampus
, to understand the neural circuits and cellular events underlying the expression, storage, and retrieval of associative memory
.
Center for Neuroeconomics
Krasnow scientists are using functional magnetic resonance imaging of the human brain to study human interactions within the context of free-markets. These studies allow, for the first time, the elucidation of a biological basis for economic decisions.
Center for Social Complexity and Computational Social Science Research (CSC/CSS)
Scientific projects at the Center for Social Complexity focus on investigating social systems and processes on multiple scales: groups, organizations, economies, societies, regions, international systems. Researchers use a variety of interdisciplinary tools, including multi-agent systems and agent-based models (including the MASON toolkit in Java), cellular automata and other social simulation methods, network and graph-theoretic models, GIS (geographic information systems), events data analysis, complexity-theoretic models and other advanced computational methods. The Center houses a specialized simulation environment (the Simulatorium), where faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate research assistants collaborate in a variety of projects. Conflict and cooperation, emergent economic systems, network dynamics, and long-term societal adaptation to environmental change are among the current lines of investigation. Funding for the Center is provided by grants from the US National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and other agencies. (*see also: Department of Computational Social Science)
Comparative Neuroanatomy Laboratory
The Comparative Neuroanatomy Laboratory takes an evolutionary approach to understanding brain architectures. It makes studies of brain organization in diverse groups of animal
s, including fish
es, reptile
s, bird
s, and mammal
s. The shape and arrangement of neuron
s are analyzed in various parts of the brain to look for similarities that may be related to similar functional capabilities. The goal is to illuminate the relationship of neuronal structure to a wide range of cognitive functions, such as the ability to understand spatial relationships to form a mental map (which most animals can do) and higher-level abilities, such as thinking forward in time
and mentally categorizing sets of objects (which both birds and mammals can do).
Computational and Experimental Neuroplasticity Lab
The Computational and Experimental Neuroplasticity Laboratory is a multidisciplinary research group devoted to the study of learning
and memory
. Lab members search for the biophysical and biochemical mechanisms of long term memory storage. In particular, they seek to understand the cellular events underlying the requirement for temporal proximity of stimuli to be associated, and the neural circuits involved in the behavioral expression of memory.
Computational Cerebral Hemodynamics
This research focuses on the mechanisms responsible for the initiation, progression and outcome of cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke
. Particular attention is paid to brain aneurysms, a major cause of hemorrhagic strokes. Investigators use state-of-the-art image-based computational techniques to model the patient-specific blood flow patterns in intracranial aneurysms. These models provide information that can be used to understand the relationship between blood flow dynamics and clinical events such as aneurysm growth and rupture. The goals of this research are to improve our understanding of the processes responsible for the evolution of cerebral aneurysms, to improve patient evaluations in order to determine who needs to be treated, and to optimize and personalize therapies.
Krasnow Investigations of Developmental Learning and Behavior (KIDLAB)
Research efforts at KIDLAB are focused on investigating the relationship between talent and disability. KIDLAB does this using behavioral paradigms and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the cognitive neuroscience of reasoning and attention processes in adults and children. KIDLAB's goal is to contribute new insight into how the brain develops and learns throughout the lifespan under normal circumstances and in the cases of pathologies such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and Alzheimer's disease.
Origin of Life Laboratory
This laboratory focuses on the origin of life. Recent work has shown how the entire metabolic chart is potentially an emergent of simple autocatalytic metabolic systems such as the citric acid cycle
. The goal is to elucidate deep pruning rules, analogous to the Pauli Exclusion Principle, that would inevitably lead to carbon-based life under a manifold of conditions throughout the Universe. The project has been funded by the Sir John Templeton Foundation and the National Science Foundation
.
Perception & Action Neuroscience Group
The ability to see other people moving is essential for many aspects of daily life – from things as simple as avoiding collisions to detecting suspicious behavior or recognizing that someone is upset. The research efforts of the Perception & Action Neuroscience Group are focused on examining how we recognize human movement and the impact of others’ actions upon our own actions, using a combination of behavioral paradigms, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and electroencephalography (EEG). The goal of the group’s research is to further the understanding of how we see and act with others as part of everyday life, in specialized settings such as surveillance, and in conditions in which human movement recognition may be impaired.
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
. An academic unit of George Mason University
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
, the Institute for Advanced Study also serves as a center for doctoral education in such areas as neuroscience and computational social science. Research at the Institute is funded by agencies such as the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
, the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
and the Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
.
History
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
was chartered in 1990 as a result of a bequest from Shelley Krasnow, a long-time resident of the National Capital Area. The work of the Institute began in 1993 with a scientific conference, co-sponsored with The Santa Fe Institute
Santa Fe Institute
The Santa Fe Institute is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, including physical, computational, biological, and social systems.The Institute houses a...
(SFI) and hosted at George Mason University. This conference on "The Mind, the Brain, and Complex Adaptive Systems" brought together an unusual group of scientists including two Nobel laureates (Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann is an American physicist and linguist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles...
and Herbert Simon
Herbert Simon
Herbert Alexander Simon was an American political scientist, economist, sociologist, and psychologist, and professor—most notably at Carnegie Mellon University—whose research ranged across the fields of cognitive psychology, cognitive science, computer science, public administration, economics,...
) and produced new approaches to this frontier in addition to a book published by SFI.
These efforts set the Institute on the path of human cognition within the context of this nexus: the intersection of neuroscience, cognitive psychology and computer sciences.
Current Institute
George Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
. The range of their research on cognition spans from molecules to mind. The Institute is housed in a dedicated 60000 square feet (5,574.2 m²) facility on the Fairfax Campus of George Mason which includes extensive wet-laboratories, computer labs, a 3T MRI human brain imaging center, a cellular imaging facility, as well as faculty offices and breakout space. Additional space on the Fairfax campus houses the Institute's Center for Social Complexity.The Institute's facility will be expanded to 90000 square feet (8,361.3 m²) with a new wing to house the Institute's Centers and academic programs.
An Academic Unit of George Mason University
The Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study is also an academic unit of George Mason UniversityGeorge Mason University
George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...
. It houses two Mason academic departments: Molecular Neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
and the Department of Computational Social Science and plays a key role in two doctoral interdisciplinary doctoral programs, one in neuroscience and the other in social complexity.
The Institute recently hosted the kick-off event for a new initiative, "The Decade of the Mind
Decade of the Mind
The Decade of the Mind Project is an international initiative to advance our scientific understanding of how the mind and complex behaviors are related to the activity of human brains. The problem of explaining the mind is so complex as to require "big science" to make real progress...
" which will urge the U.S. Congress to invest in understanding how mind emerges from brain.
The Institute also recently entered into a close collaboration with the Janelia Farm Campus of Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Howard Hughes Medical Institute is a United States non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded by the American businessman Howard Hughes in 1953. It is one of the largest private funding organizations for biological and medical research in the United...
, the Allen Institute for Brain Science
Allen Institute for Brain Science
The Allen Institute for Brain Science is a Seattle-based nonprofit medical research organization that was launched in 2003 with a $100 million seed donation from philanthropist, founder and former Microsoft executive Paul Allen.-Overview:...
and the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
to develop better methods of reconstructing neuronal architectures.
Research
Various research programs are conducted by many lab groups and centers within the Krasnow Institute.Krasnow investigators seek to provide the research bases that may lead to cures to some of the most devastating brain diseases.
Adaptive Systems Laboratory
Human brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
s do many tasks much better than the fastest silicon computers—even with much slower components. These applications range from facial recognition to adaptive exploratory behavior
Behavior
Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...
(such as a planetary robot might be expected to perform). The overall goal of the Adaptive Systems Laboratory is to identify and analyze the critical properties of complex adaptive systems, the brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
being one example, using agent-based modeling
Scientific modelling
Scientific modelling is the process of generating abstract, conceptual, graphical and/or mathematical models. Science offers a growing collection of methods, techniques and theory about all kinds of specialized scientific modelling...
and evolutionary computation
Evolutionary computation
In computer science, evolutionary computation is a subfield of artificial intelligence that involves combinatorial optimization problems....
methods.
Center for Neural Dynamics
Krasnow scientists are helping create novel descriptions of how connected nerve cells interact to create behavior. They have been instrumental in applying techniques from the control of erratic chaotic systems to neuronal networks in an effort to lay a foundation for the eventual control of dynamical diseases such as epilepsy
Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder characterized by seizures. These seizures are transient signs and/or symptoms of abnormal, excessive or hypersynchronous neuronal activity in the brain.About 50 million people worldwide have epilepsy, and nearly two out of every three new cases...
and Parkinson's Disease
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
. This work has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
and the Whitaker Foundation.
The Center for Neural Informatics, Neural Structures, and Neural Plasticity (CN3)
The Center for Neural Informatics, Neural Structures, and Neural Plasticity (CN3) pursues fundamental breakthroughs in neuroscience by fostering neuroinformatic and computational approaches to neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity
Neuroplasticity is a non-specific neuroscience term referring to the ability of the brain and nervous system in all species to change structurally and functionally as a result of input from the environment. Plasticity occurs on a variety of levels, ranging from cellular changes involved in...
and neuroanatomy
Neuroanatomy
Neuroanatomy is the study of the anatomy and organization of the nervous system. In contrast to animals with radial symmetry, whose nervous system consists of a distributed network of cells, animals with bilateral symmetry have segregated, defined nervous systems, and thus we can begin to speak of...
. By bringing together faculty expertise in these multiple disciplines, the Center provides opportunities for cross-training in neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, and engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
, both at the graduate and postdoctoral levels. CN3 researchers investigate the relationship between brain
Brain
The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...
structure, activity, and function from the subcellular to the network level, with a specific focus on the biophysical and biochemical mechanisms of learning
Learning
Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.Human learning...
and memory
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
. In the long term, we seek to create large-scale, biologically plausible network models of entire portions of the mammalian brain, such as the hippocampus
Hippocampus
The hippocampus is a major component of the brains of humans and other vertebrates. It belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory and spatial navigation. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in...
, to understand the neural circuits and cellular events underlying the expression, storage, and retrieval of associative memory
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
.
Center for Neuroeconomics
Krasnow scientists are using functional magnetic resonance imaging of the human brain to study human interactions within the context of free-markets. These studies allow, for the first time, the elucidation of a biological basis for economic decisions.
Center for Social Complexity and Computational Social Science Research (CSC/CSS)
Scientific projects at the Center for Social Complexity focus on investigating social systems and processes on multiple scales: groups, organizations, economies, societies, regions, international systems. Researchers use a variety of interdisciplinary tools, including multi-agent systems and agent-based models (including the MASON toolkit in Java), cellular automata and other social simulation methods, network and graph-theoretic models, GIS (geographic information systems), events data analysis, complexity-theoretic models and other advanced computational methods. The Center houses a specialized simulation environment (the Simulatorium), where faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate research assistants collaborate in a variety of projects. Conflict and cooperation, emergent economic systems, network dynamics, and long-term societal adaptation to environmental change are among the current lines of investigation. Funding for the Center is provided by grants from the US National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and other agencies. (*see also: Department of Computational Social Science)
Comparative Neuroanatomy Laboratory
The Comparative Neuroanatomy Laboratory takes an evolutionary approach to understanding brain architectures. It makes studies of brain organization in diverse groups of animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
s, including fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
es, reptile
Reptile
Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...
s, bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s, and mammal
Mammal
Mammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
s. The shape and arrangement of neuron
Neuron
A neuron is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information by electrical and chemical signaling. Chemical signaling occurs via synapses, specialized connections with other cells. Neurons connect to each other to form networks. Neurons are the core components of the nervous...
s are analyzed in various parts of the brain to look for similarities that may be related to similar functional capabilities. The goal is to illuminate the relationship of neuronal structure to a wide range of cognitive functions, such as the ability to understand spatial relationships to form a mental map (which most animals can do) and higher-level abilities, such as thinking forward in time
Time
Time is a part of the measuring system used to sequence events, to compare the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify rates of change such as the motions of objects....
and mentally categorizing sets of objects (which both birds and mammals can do).
Computational and Experimental Neuroplasticity Lab
The Computational and Experimental Neuroplasticity Laboratory is a multidisciplinary research group devoted to the study of learning
Learning
Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.Human learning...
and memory
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
. Lab members search for the biophysical and biochemical mechanisms of long term memory storage. In particular, they seek to understand the cellular events underlying the requirement for temporal proximity of stimuli to be associated, and the neural circuits involved in the behavioral expression of memory.
Computational Cerebral Hemodynamics
This research focuses on the mechanisms responsible for the initiation, progression and outcome of cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
. Particular attention is paid to brain aneurysms, a major cause of hemorrhagic strokes. Investigators use state-of-the-art image-based computational techniques to model the patient-specific blood flow patterns in intracranial aneurysms. These models provide information that can be used to understand the relationship between blood flow dynamics and clinical events such as aneurysm growth and rupture. The goals of this research are to improve our understanding of the processes responsible for the evolution of cerebral aneurysms, to improve patient evaluations in order to determine who needs to be treated, and to optimize and personalize therapies.
Krasnow Investigations of Developmental Learning and Behavior (KIDLAB)
Research efforts at KIDLAB are focused on investigating the relationship between talent and disability. KIDLAB does this using behavioral paradigms and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the cognitive neuroscience of reasoning and attention processes in adults and children. KIDLAB's goal is to contribute new insight into how the brain develops and learns throughout the lifespan under normal circumstances and in the cases of pathologies such as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, and Alzheimer's disease.
Origin of Life Laboratory
This laboratory focuses on the origin of life. Recent work has shown how the entire metabolic chart is potentially an emergent of simple autocatalytic metabolic systems such as the citric acid cycle
Citric acid cycle
The citric acid cycle — also known as the tricarboxylic acid cycle , the Krebs cycle, or the Szent-Györgyi-Krebs cycle — is a series of chemical reactions which is used by all aerobic living organisms to generate energy through the oxidization of acetate derived from carbohydrates, fats and...
. The goal is to elucidate deep pruning rules, analogous to the Pauli Exclusion Principle, that would inevitably lead to carbon-based life under a manifold of conditions throughout the Universe. The project has been funded by the Sir John Templeton Foundation and the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
.
Perception & Action Neuroscience Group
The ability to see other people moving is essential for many aspects of daily life – from things as simple as avoiding collisions to detecting suspicious behavior or recognizing that someone is upset. The research efforts of the Perception & Action Neuroscience Group are focused on examining how we recognize human movement and the impact of others’ actions upon our own actions, using a combination of behavioral paradigms, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and electroencephalography (EEG). The goal of the group’s research is to further the understanding of how we see and act with others as part of everyday life, in specialized settings such as surveillance, and in conditions in which human movement recognition may be impaired.