Month: February 2017

Interested in tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation)?

tDCS (transcranial direct current stimulation) at the Brain Imaging Research Center

For those of you who are not aware, up at the Brain Imaging Research Center (BIRC) we have a brand new, state-of-the-art tDCS/tACS GTEN system manufactured by EGI.
tDCS, or transcranial direct current stimulation, is a noninvasive neurostimulation technique similar to TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation). It can be used to modulate excitability of brain regions to improve or impair performance on various tasks.

tACS, or transcranial alternating current stimulation, is also a noninvasive neurostimulation technique used to manipulate cortical oscillations.
We are planning on running a tDCS study in the future, and we thought it would be useful to set up a tDCS group (e.g., using Slack or other sharing software) so we will be able to share resources such as IRBs, scripts, protocols, questionnaires, etc.

If you are planning on running a tDCS/tACS study or you’re interested in tDCS/tACS, please email us at uconn.tdcs@gmail.com and we will be in touch!
Feel free to forward this message to anyone you think might be interested in tDCS/tACS!
Sincerely,
Gitte Joergensen & Hannah Morrow

Date Change: LangFest 4/29

Due to a large number of our language scientists wishing to take part in the March for Science on April 22, we have moved Language Fest 2017 to the following Saturday, April 29. We hope that everyone who had previously registered or signed up to present a poster will still be able to attend, but if you cannot, please email Ashley Parker at ashley.parker@uconn.edu.

For those who have not yet registered, please do so by March 27th (no registration deadlines have changed). The details are repeated below.

 

Language Fest is a University-wide research conference that brings together the full community of language researchers at UConn, including undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty, for a day of sharing results, ideas, methodologies and fostering future interdisciplinary collaborations.

This year’s Fest features talks from two speakers known for their research on language: Ellen Lau (University of Maryland) who studies the neurobiology of language using MEG and fMRI, and Casey Lew-Williams (Princeton University) who studies language development in mono- and bilingual infants. In addition to these talks,two poster sessions will showcase language-related research from the UConn community.

Registration:
If you plan to attend LangFest, we ask that you please register using this Google Form (it is the same as the call for posters below). Registration is free. We would just like to get an accurate headcount for ordering lunch. (There are also options for reporting dietary restrictions.)

Call for Posters:
We invite poster presentations from the UConn community on the subject of language and language-related research. This is a great opportunity for undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and faculty to share their research with the UConn language community. You can use a poster from a recent or upcoming conference, or design one for the fest. Completed work, published work, and works-in-progress are all welcome. Undergraduate Honors Projects, or SHARE or SURF-sponsored research are also welcome. Please keep in mind that you will have a diverse audience at the fest, and you should be prepared to explain the ‘big picture’ motivating your work for people from different disciplines. If you would like to present a poster, all you have to do is send us your poster title and author names and affiliations by March 27 using this link.

If you are interested in doing a video presentation or demoing a piece of software/equipment, please contact Ashley Parker (ashley.parker@uconn.edu).

We are excited to announce a new addition to this year’s Language Fest. We will be awarding at least four Best Poster Awards to undergraduate students. To qualify, the undergraduate student must (i) be the lead investigator on the project, (ii) be the presenting/first author on the poster, and (iii) submit a finalized version of the poster (in PDF format) to ashley.parker@uconn.edu by April 15.

For questions relating to Language Fest, please contact Ashley Parker (ashley.parker@uconn.edu).

Undergraduate Research Fellowships

We are happy to announce the second round of the undergraduate research grant program that is being run by the Connecticut Institute for Brain and Cognitive Sciences (IBACS).

SPRING SEMESTER ANNOUNCEMENT

The application period for the spring semester grant is now open, and the deadline for applications will be 11:59 pm on Sunday February 19th, 2017.

The application process is being conducted in concert with the Office of Undergraduate Research (OUR).

It is expected that applicants will be conducting research with IBACS faculty members, focusing on any research area associated with the IBACS mission.

Faculty sponsors will need to supply a letter of recommendation. Applicants must fill out the online questionnaire (follow link below), and also submit on to the website a relatively short research plan (maximum of 3 pages, not including references) and a budget that explains in detail how the funds will be spent.

The funds can be spent on any supplies or materials that contribute to the research, including software, participant costs and any animal expenses. Salary for the student investigator is not an acceptable item on the budget. It is recommended that the student first compose the research plan and budget using a word processing program, and then upload the final versions on to the website.

It is expected that there will be five awards of up to $1,000 this semester.

Students who received a Fall 2016 grant are ineligible for the Spring award.

In order to start the application process, please follow the links below (either click on the link or copy and paste it into your browser):

Student application   

Faculty recommendation form

We look forward to receiving applications from highly qualified undergraduates. Award information will be provided shortly after the proposals are reviewed.

LangFest Call for Posters

Language Fest –  4/22/17 from 9am-4pm, Oak Hall

We are pleased to announce that the eighth annual University of Connecticut Language Fest will be held on Saturday, April 22nd, from 9AM–4PM in Oak Hall at the Storrs Campus, jointly funded by the Connecticut Institute for the Brain and Cognitive Sciences, the Cognitive Science Program, and the Departments of Linguistics, Philosophy, Psychological Sciences, and Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences.

Language Fest is a University-wide research conference that brings together the full community of language researchers at UConn, including undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty, for a day of sharing results, ideas, methodologies and fostering future interdisciplinary collaborations.

This year’s Fest features talks from two speakers known for their research on language: Ellen Lau (University of Maryland) who studies the neurobiology of language using MEG and fMRI, and Casey Lew-Williams (Princeton University) who studies language development in mono- and bilingual infants. In addition to these talks, two poster sessions will showcase language-related research from the UConn community.

Registration: If you plan to attend LangFest, we ask that you please register using this google form (it is the same as the call for posters below). Registration is free. We would just like to get an accurate head count for ordering lunch (there are also options for reporting dietary restrictions).
Call for Posters: We invite poster presentations from the UConn community on the subject of language and language-related research. This is a great opportunity for undergraduates, graduate students, postdocs, and faculty to share their research with the UConn language community. You can use a poster from a recent or upcoming conference, or design one for the fest. Completed work, published work, and works-in-progress are all welcome. Undergraduate Honors Projects, or SHARE or SURF-sponsored research are also welcome. Please keep in mind that you will have a diverse audience at the fest, and you should be prepared to explain the ‘big picture’ motivating your work for people from different disciplines. If you would like to present a poster, all you have to do is send us your poster title and author names and affiliations by March 27 using this google form.

If you are interested in doing a video presentation or demoing a piece of software/equipment, please contact Ashley Parker (ashley.parker@uconn.edu).
We are excited to announce a new addition to this year’s Language Fest. We will be awarding at least four Best Poster Awards to undergraduate students. To qualify, the student must (i) be the lead investigator on the project, (ii) be the presenting/first author on the poster, and (iii) submit a finalized version of the poster (in PDF format) to ashley.parker@uconn.edu by April 15.

For questions relating to Language Fest, please contact Ashley Parker (ashley.parker@uconn.edu).

We look forward to seeing you at the Fest!

UConn LangFest Organizing Committee

Erika Skoe, Speech Language and Hearing Sciences

Jon Sprouse, Linguistics

Emma Bjorngard, Philosophy

Ashley Parker, Speech Language and Hearing Sciences

Yanina Prystauka, Psychological Sciences

Elizabeth Simmons, Psychological Sciences

“Does the Brain Flicker? Evidence for time-division multiplexing in the brain, and implications for cognition”

BME Seminar

Friday, February 10, 2017
ITE 336 at Storrs & Videoconferenced to UCHC CG-079B
12:00-12:50 pm

“Does the Brain Flicker? Evidence for time-division multiplexing in the brain, and implications for cognition”

Presented By: Dr. Jennifer Groh, Professor of Neurobiology, Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University

Abstract: Most of what we know about brain representations comes from experiments in which only a single stimulus is presented at a time. However, it is not at all clear how to extend the findings from the single stimulus case to the natural situation with multiple stimuli at once, particularly when each stimulus can activate an overlapping population of neurons. One possible solution to this problem is time-division multiplexing, a telecommunications strategy in which different signals are interleaved across time. We have developed a statistical method for assessing whether neural responses exhibit such interleaved signals (collaboration with Surya Tokdar). I’ll present evidence from two very different cases: how two sounds are represented in the primate inferior colliculus (Groh lab) and how two visual face stimuli are represented in IT face patches (collaboration with Winrich Freiwald).

Biography: Jennifer Groh is a Professor of Neurobiology and Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University. She is the author of the book Making Space: How the Brain Knows Where Things Are (Harvard University Press, 2014), and runs a Coursera course entitled “The Brain and Space”. Her research spans the computational and experimental domains, and concerns the neural algorithms that underlie spatial processing within and across the visual, auditory, and oculomotor systems. For example, her research has demonstrated interactions between visual/eye movement and auditory signals throughout the auditory pathway from the eardrum to the inferior colliculus to auditory cortex, interactions which are hypothesized to support the computation of auditory space in a visual/eye-centered reference frame. For more information, see her website www.duke.edu/~jmgroh or follow her on twitter @jmgrohneuro.

Cog Sci Workshop Opportunity for Undergrads

University of Delaware Undergraduate Workshop in Cognitive and Brain Sciences

Are you interested in learning more about cognitive and brain sciences? If so, the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Delaware is holding its 1st Annual Summer Workshop in Cognitive and Brain Sciences. This program, from June 5th-16th, 2017, is an intensive workshop for undergraduates who are interested in cognitive research. Participants will receive immersive training in cognitive and brain sciences, including both formal coursework, interactive teaching, and hands-on experience with functional neuroimaging, non-invasive brain stimulation, cognitive neuropsychological research, and more.

Thanks to funding from the National Science Foundation, participant expenses involving travel, tuition, room and board will be covered for the entire two-week program. Furthermore, selected workshop attendees will have the opportunity to engage in cognitive neuroscience research over the entire summer at the University of Delaware. Those students will be provided with a stipend, in addition to workshop expenses.

We encourage all undergraduates with a strong interest in the cognitive and brain sciences to apply. We also encourage students from underrepresented backgrounds to apply. Applications are due March 1st. For more information, please go to https:/www.psych.udel.edu/brainworkshop<https://www.psych.udel.edu/brainworkshop>. If you have any questions, please contact the workshop organizers (Drs. Jared Medina & Anna Papafragou) at brainworkshop@psych.udel.edu<mailto:brainworkshop@psych.udel.edu>.