Training in Cognitive Psychophysiology

University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign, Urbana IL

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Support is requested for the continuation of a research training program in cognitive psychophysiology. The training program responds to the increasing penetration of psychophysiological techniques into many domains of the behavioral and biological sciences. Psychophysiological techniques include electromagnetic, hemodynamic, and optical neuroimaging methods, as well as measures of more peripheral bodily functions (such as eye movement, heart rate, electrodermal activity, and electromyography, in all of which we have expertise). Scientists trained in many subdisciplines of psychology, psychiatry, neurocience, bioengineering, radiology, physics, and other fields are adopting these measurement approaches to attack mental illness. There is a pressing and even accelerating need to provide training in cognitively sophisticated psychophysiology for basic, clinical, and translational scientists. The program faculty are active scientists with diverse backgrounds and interests, based in the Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry, Bioengineering, Statistics, and Electrical and Computer Engineering as well as the interdepartmental Neuroscience Program and the Beckman Institute, emphasizing fMRI, ERP, and optical methods and their integration with each other and with other methods, especially MEG and eye movement. The training program brings the core faculty members and their graduate students and postdocs together in an exceptionally rich environment, in terms of both diverse scholarship and excellent facilities, that provides thorough training in cognitive psychophysiology through coursework and an intensive research apprenticeship, augmented in the next funding cycle by broadened exposure to psychopathology and training in advanced biosignal processing for studying the implementation of the mind by the brain and its disruption in mental illness. Sixteen core faculty will be available to 4 predoc and 3 postdoc trainees. Relevance: Training in cognitive psychophysiology directly addresses NIMH priorities for understanding brain mechanisms in mental illness. Assessment and intervention strategies will benefit to the extent we identify brain implementations of abnormal psychological phenomena.