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The Surprising Power of the Aging Brain'
Adrienne A Moore, 2007/05/24 11:38:41
It took Barbara Hustedt Crook an awfully long time
to get around to writing her first musical. She
started last year, shortly before her 60th
birthday. Her friend and collaborator, Robert
Strozier, waited even longer; he's 65. It's not
that they didn't have the creative chops for the
job. The two have spent their careers writing and
editing in New York City, and Crook has a
background in performing, singing and piano. But
creating a musical always felt just out of
reach--until now.
"Somehow I have a confidence I didn't have
before," says Crook. "I find that my brain makes
leaps it didn't make so easily. I can hear my
inner voice and trust instincts and hunches in
ways I didn't used to."<more>
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| First music, then video, now brain atlas
Joshua H Smith, 2006/01/17 14:24:13
This is your brain on an iPod -- color-coded,
described and with a voice pronouncing the names
of its features.
It's all part of SylviusVG, an interactive
audio-visual guide to brain and spinal cord anatomy.
Sylvius is the brainchild of Duke neurobiology
professors S. Mark Williams, who with Leonard
White and programmer and interface designer Andrew
Mace created it. It's one of their latest products
of a suite of computerized guides to the human
nervous system used in between 40 and 50 percent
of the nation's medical schools, Williams said. <more>
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| Older brains 'rise to the challenge'
Joshua H Smith, 2005/12/15 15:28:56
When the going gets tough, older adults' brains
get going, according to new research by a
University of Michigan professor studying how key
regions of the brain click on when needed.
Several regions in the brain, especially in the
frontal cortex, are involved in helping people
meet the demands of a constantly changing
environment. While earlier research focused on
older adults' failures to activate these regions,
the new U-M research found that older adults can
activate these regions in response to a
challenging task, and may also bring additional
brain regions online to help their performance. <more>
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| Monkey Math Machinery is Like Humans'
Joshua H Smith, 2005/12/15 15:46:57
Monkeys have a semantic perception of numbers
that is like humans\u2019 and which is
independent of language, Duke University
cognitive neuroscientists have discovered. They
said their findings demonstrate that the neural
mechanism underlying numerical perception is
evolutionarily primitive.<more>
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| Studies Between the Lines
Joshua H Smith, 2005/12/15 12:23:01
He wanted to be a developmental
psychologist, and for his dissertation he
developed a system of monitoring infant eye
movements. One day a colleague mentioned that his
system could be useful in analyzing autistic
children. The insight opened a door in Pelphrey’s
career and, ever since, he’s been heading in a
different direction, at the intersection of
psychology, cognitive neuroscience and imaging.
<more>
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| Kudos to Kevin LaBar
Ryn Nasser, 2005/08/31 15:06:39
Dr. Kevin LaBar received the 2005
Young Investigator Award from the
Society for Cognitive Neuroscience to recognize
his outstanding research on brain
mechanisms of emotional memory. He joins our
colleague, Dr. Roberto Cabeza who
won this award in 2003. Duke University is the
only institution to have 2 award
winners on its Faculty. |
| Welcome new Assistant Professor Steve Mitroff
Ryn Nasser, 2005/08/31 15:07:08
The Department of Psychological
and
Brain Sciences and the Center
for Cognitive Neuroscience welcome new Assistant
Professor, Dr. Steve Mitroff.
Dr. Mitroff received his Ph.D. from Harvard
University and did postdoctoral training
at Yale University in the Department of
Psychology. His research examines the
nature of persisting object representations and
draws on both adult visual perception
and infant cognition work. Questions that have
been of interest include how does
the visual system keep track of visual
information as representing the same objects
over time and motion, how are we able to detect
that something has changed from
one view of the world to the next, and what role
does conscious awareness play
in visual processing.
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| Welcome new Assistant Professor Kevin Pelphrey
Joshua H Smith, 2005/12/15 12:09:10
We welcome Dr Kevin Pelphrey, who
joins the faculty of the Department of
Psychological and Brain Sciences. Dr. Pelphrey
comes to Duke from the University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill where he was an Assistant
Professor in Psychiatry. His research interests
include: Cognitive Developmental Neuroscience,
Autism, Social Perception, Social Cognition, Face
Perception. One of Dr. Pelphrey's studies
(Pelphrey, Singerman, Allison, & McCarthy,
2003) examines the brain region that are involved
with social perception using virtual characters
that look towards or away from a target.
<more> |
| Welcome to another MAD (Memory at Duke ) scientist
Ryn Nasser, 2005/08/31 15:08:06
Dr. Patricia Bauer joins the
faculty
of the Department of Psychological
and Brain Sciences. Dr. Bauer comes to Duke from
the Institute of Child Development,
University of Minnesota (since 1989), where she
was the Rodney S. Wallace Professor
for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning. Her
research program is in developmental
cognitive science, with particular emphasis on
memory. She is especially concerned
with development in infancy and early childhood,
and with relations between functional
changes and neuro-developmental changes.
<more> |
| Monkeys Understand Numbers Across Senses
Joshua H Smith, 2005/12/15 12:26:53
Assistant Professor
Elizabeth
Brannon and graduate student Kerry Jordan have
found that monkeys understand numbers
across the senses suggesting that numerical
perception is an abstract concept
even in monkeys. These findings were reported in
the June 7th issue of Current Biology.
<more>
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