| Principal Investigators |
Brett
Clementz, PhD.
Web: http://www.uga.edu/psychology/faculty/bclementz.html |
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Jennifer
McDowell, PhD.
Web: http://www.uga.edu/psychology/faculty/jmcdowell.html
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| CCNL Graduate Students |
Benjamin Austin [CV]
Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University (2003)
M.S. Cognitive/Experimental Psychology, University of Georgia (2007)
Email: piya@uga.edu
Generally I’m interested in using fMRI to assess inhibitory cognitive processes
in health and illness. I currently have three fMRI studies in progress. The first is a study
of behavioral inhibition during a delayed-inhibition task in normal participants. The study
is an adaptation of an elegant single-cell recording study done in non-human primates. The
second study is an investigation of exercise effects on cognition in overweight children.
fMRI data were acquired from overweight children who had exercise training and those with no
training during the performance of a simple inhibitory task (an antisaccade paradigm). For
my doctoral thesis, I am preparing an fMRI study investigating practice-based neural plasticity
among normal and schizophrenia subjects. The goal of the study is to determine whether and
how neural pathways supporting pro-saccade (glances towards a peripheral stimulus) and
anti-saccade performance (glances towards the mirror image of a peripheral stimulus) are
modified across time in normal and schizophrenia subjects. The manner in which schizophrenia
subjects' brains respond to practice that is task-consistent (anti-saccade practice improves
anti-saccade performance) or task-inconsistent (pro-saccade practice) may have important
implications for understanding the malleability and durability of neural mechanisms supporting
executive functioning processes within these groups. |
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Lauren Ethridge
B.A. University of Georgia (2006)
B.S. University of Georgia (2006)
Email: ethri@uga.edu
I am currently analyzing EEG data to study the effects of various common
experimental paradigms on basic saccadic performance in the nonpsychiatric population. I
am also working on a project studying the primary visual response of monozygotic and
dizygotic twins to a rotated head paradigm as a possible endophenotype for problem behaviors
such as diminished inhibition of inappropriate social behaviors. In the future, I am
interested in continuing research with multi-modal neuroimaging in twins to further
evaluate how genetics interplays with environment to shape behavior. |
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Yuan (Anne) Gao
B.S. Beijing Normal University (2003)
M.S. The University of Georgia, (2006)
Email: annegao@uga.edu
My research interests are to use neural imaging techniques (fMRI, EEG, MEG) to investigate:
1. Normal aging associated structural changes of human cerebral cortex and their functional manifestations on cognition.
2. Steady-state brain activity in human auditory and visual modalities.
3. Cognitive-neural functional associations, i.e. saccade behaviors as an functional index, of the schizophrenia patients. |
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Jordan Hamm
B.S. The University of Georgia, (2008)
B.A. The University of Georgia, (2008)
Email: jordanh@uga.edu
My research involves: 1. Using EEG to understand the roles of both stochastic and stimulus-evoked cortical processes in response preparation and target detection. 2. Investigating the nature of auditory deficits in schizophrenia using Magnetic Source Imaging (MEG, MRI) of both transient and steady-state responses. 3. A multi-site investigation of genetic factors underlying sensory processing deficits in schizophrenia and bipolar disorders.
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Cynthia Krafft
B.S. University of South Carolina (2008)
Email: krafft@uga.edu
My research interests are relatively broad within the areas of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, but I am especially interested in investigating inhibitory processes. I am currently involved in several studies. My main focus is in investigating the effects of an exercise intervention on the executive control of sedentary, overweight children. I am also involved in a project that investigates neural plasticity resulting from saccadic practice in schizophrenia.
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Justin Knight[CV]
B.S. North Greenville University, (2008)
Email: jbknight@uga.edu
I am interested in implementing neuroimaging techniques in order to inform cognitive theory. Specifically, my research interests center on the cognitive domain of memory, of which I am interested in exploring the degree to which neuronal processes that support different types of memory (e.g., prospective memory, recognition memory, and source memory) are similar and distinct. Currently, I am conducting a prospective memory (i.e., memory for intentions) experiment in the dense-array EEG environment. In this experiment, I am examining how the neural activations supporting prospective remembering differ depending on the type of intention (e.g., focal or nonfocal) one has formed. This study has theoretical implications for, among others, furthering our understanding of how prospective memory is supported by attentional mechanisms. Additionally, I am interested in carrying out neuroimaging and behavioral studies to explore how one’s mental agenda (or current task goal) and the contextual features of to-be-remembered material affect both encoding and retrieval of memories.
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Lisa Krusemark
M.S. University of Georgia (2006)
B.A. University of Georgia (2003)
B.S.W. University of Georgia (2001)
Email: bdlisk@uga.edu
I study the effects of socially relevant feedback on cognitive performance.
Recently I have been involved in projects that examine the effects of social exclusion, and
how success and failure feedback affects cognitive processing. I am also interested in how
these types of manipulations affect cognitive control and the related physiological processes. |
|
Qinyang Li
M.S. Peking University (2005)
B.E. University of Science and Technology, Beijing (2002)
Email: yang@uga.edu
I am interested in attention and the relationship between attention and other
cognitive functions, such as perception, emotion and executive function. My most recent study
examined how the emotional vocal expressions attract listener's attention when the stimuli was
unattended and task irrelevant in an auditory oddball task (under review). Currently I am using
antisaccade task to investigate whether alcohol/drug abuse is related to the inhibition function
of healthy participants. |
|
William Oliver
B.S. University of Georgia (2008)
Email: woliver@uga.edu
Currently, I am working on several projects in the lab. The first is an EEG study focusing on neural entrainment to an oscillating visual stimulus in persons with schizophrenia. I am also involved in an MEG study focusing on persons with schizophrenia that involves an auditory oddball task. The third research project that I am involved in is an exploratory effort attempting to combine cross modal imaging data. This research involves a simple visual paradigm that is administered under three imaging environments EEG, MEG and fMRI. This project is still in a pilot phase and we are currently working through the complex confounding technical issues. My most recent endeavor will be focused on manipulating an individual’s attitude toward another’s race and behavioral/neural consequences of such attitudes. For instance, what effect does ignoring another’s race have on face processing of same and different race faces? |
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Nathaniel Thom
M.S. University of Georgia (2003)
B.S. University of Wisconsin (2001)
Email: njthom@uga.edu
I am interested in the effect of exercise on anger.
Currently I am using event-related potential indices of emotion processing to develop a
set of pictures to elicit anger, and in the future I plan to evaluate the effects of
exercise on anger and aggression in youth with aggressive behavior as well as individuals
with cardiovascular disease. I am also conducting research in the UGA Exercise Psychology Laboratory |
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Jun (Frank) Wang
M.Ed. Zhejiang University (2002)
B.S. Zhejiang University
(1999)
Email: jwang@uga.edu
My research interest is to explore neural mechanisms behind the attention
and inhibition process. Now, I am using EEG/MEG to investigate attention/inhibition within
the Steady-State paradigm. In the future, I would like to study the attention/inhibition
in 3D environment and across the multiple modalities.
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