Selected research projects
Construal level as a novel pathway for affect regulation and cancer control
Elliot Berkman, UO Department of Psychology. Sponsored by the NIH
Cigarette smoking is among the leading causes of preventable death in the United States because smoking increases risk for lung cancer and various diseases. Though U.S. smoking rates have declined, a substantial percentage of adults, particularly those living in poverty who have repeatedly tried and failed to quit, still smoke and therefore could benefit from novel interventions for cessation that operate through different mechanisms than those of traditional treatments. This study will use neuroimaging to uncover the mechanisms of action of a promising strategy for affect regulation and smoking cessation and also build profiles of individuals for whom this strategy does and does not work, thereby providing tangible and practical information that public health professionals and clinicians can use to inform personalized treatments for cigarette smoking cessation.
Neural mechanisms for reducing interference during episodic memory formation
Brice Kuhl, UO Department of Psychology. Sponsored by the NIH
A primary reason we forget is because we store a vast number of memories and interference between these memories becomes inevitable. While forgetting may only represent an occasional annoyance for most people, among older adults and those with dementia—groups that are growing at a disproportionate rate— memory confusion and interference-related forgetting can be debilitating problems. This research seeks to identify neural mechanisms that reduce interference-related forgetting, including in younger and older adults, and will lead to fundamental new insight into how the brain resolves interference between similar memories.
Puberty, neural systems for social processes, and early adolescent mental health: A longitudinal neuroimaging study
Jennifer Pfeifer, UO Department of Psychology. Sponsored by the NIH
Because the transition from childhood to adolescence is a key inflection point in mental health across the lifespan, understanding the core mechanisms associated with adolescent-emergent mental health problems during this phase of life will not only enhance our knowledge of how mental illness emerges in vulnerable individuals, but also enable it to be translated into developmentally targeted approaches to early intervention and prevention. This study will provide a comprehensive picture of the pubertal, neurodevelopmental, and social psychological changes occurring during early adolescence, and their relationship to the emergence of mental health problems, so that modifiable, developmentally specific risk factors can be identified as targets for early intervention and prevention efforts. The ultimate goal is to build novel, developmentally targeted and biologically informed prevention and intervention services that leverage developmental plasticity to help all children, as well as those at higher risk, navigate the transition into and through adolescence with fewer mental health problems.
Neural mechanisms of specificity and generalization learning
Dasa Zeithamova, UO Department of Psychology. Sponsored by the NIH
Memory allows us to remember specific past experiences, but also find commonalities across experiences generalizable to novel situations. The proposed research will improve our understanding of mechanisms supporting memory specificity and generalization, their contribution to decision-making, and their implementation in the healthy brain. These findings will generate new predictions about the causes of a wide variety of memory impairments, such as reduced memory specificity in aging and Alzheimer’s disease, imbalance of specificity and generalization learning in anxiety, depression, and autism, and mixed patterns of impairments following a stroke.
Project MAPS: Mapping Non-Response to Math Interventions
Ben Clarke, UO Center on Teaching and Learning. Sponsored by the NSF
Mapping Non-Response to Math Intervention (Project MAP) is a 5-year project aimed at identifying neural, domain general cognitive, and domain specific early number processes associated with mathematics achievement for first grade students. The primary aims for the early years of the project are to identify patterns of performance on critical mathematics constructs, their underlying neural signatures, and mathematics achievement outcomes within the context of a random control trial of a research validated math intervention, and to use these findings to generate hypotheses on critical math constructs as potential targets for supplemental intervention components to improve intervention outcomes for non-responders. Functional magnetic resonance imaging will be utilized to explore patterns of imaging-based measures of plasticity observed in concert with behavioral plasticity to facilitate an in depth exploration of critical early math processes and the behavioral and neural indicators thereof.
Neurophysiology of Action Control
Ian Greenhouse, UO Department of Human Physiology
Ian Greenhouse’s research examines how humans initiate and cancel movement. His lab combines behavioral testing with electrophysiology, neuroimaging, and brain stimulation in healthy and clinical populations. His current research explores the relationship between the inhibitory neurochemical gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and motor performance.