CAREER: The Mechanisms of Cognitive Development

认知发展的机制这个综合研究和教育的职业发展项目以一个基本问题为中心：人类的认知技能是如何从发育中的大脑中产生的？近年来，发展认知神经科学已经开始构建整合框架，将神经生物学和心理学结合起来，开始解决这个基本问题。计算建模的添加通过提供有前途的工具来描述开发动态，促进了这一综合框架。这个职业发展计划将建立在这些发展认知神经科学的进步。在五年的时间里，它将整合心理学、神经生物学、计算建模和机器人技术，创建一个研究人类认知发展的神经计算框架。具体来说，本项目有两个主要的研究组成部分：建设性学习：学习与神经发育之间相互作用的调查：人类认知发展依赖于生物机制和学习过程之间复杂的相互作用。本研究将构建一个计算框架，以研究学习如何指导人类认知功能基础的大脑回路的构建。有了这个框架，就有可能解决以下关键问题：认知发展的神经基质是什么，哪些过程调节它们的发展，以及神经水平的变化如何对应认知和行为水平的变化？为了研究这些问题，该框架将应用于各种认知发展现象，包括皮亚杰发展任务，执行功能的发展，以及发展可塑性中的突出问题。主动发展：对执行功能发展中中脑多巴胺系统的计算研究：越来越多的证据表明，中脑多巴胺系统构成了一个行为系统，为儿童的主动探索提供动力，这是发展的一个关键但鲜为人知的组成部分。本研究将应用中脑多巴胺预测的计算模型来研究人类执行功能的发展，这是灵活行为的基础。具体来说，该项目将构建一个计算框架来研究多巴胺能系统和前额叶皮层之间在工作记忆、行为抑制和执行功能的出现中至关重要但鲜为人知的发展联系。这项研究将与一个本科和研究生教育项目一起发展，其中包括在加州理工学院的计算和神经系统项目中创建一个新的认知研究生项目。加州理工学院最近大力致力于促进认知和行为科学领域的跨学科研究和教育，使其成为追求职业发展计划的理想环境。

Steven Quartz BCS:0093757The Mechanisms of Cognitive DevelopmentThis integrated research and education CAREER development program centers on a basic question: How do human cognitive skills emerge from the developing brain? In recent years, developmental cognitive neuroscience has begun to construct integrative frameworks that bring together neurobiology and psychology to begin to address this basic question. The addition of computational modeling has facilitated this integrative framework by offering promising tools to characterize the dynamics of development. This career development program will build on these advances in developmental cognitive neuroscience. Over five-years, it will integrate psychology, neurobiology, computational modeling, and robotics to create a neurocomputational framework for investigating human cognitive development. Specifically, this project has two major research components:Constructive learning: An Investigation of the interplay between learning and neural development: Human cognitive development rests on a complex interaction between biological mechanisms and processes of learning. This research component will construct a computational framework to investigate how learning guides the construction of the brain circuits underlying human cognitive function. With this framework, it will be possible to address such critical questions as: What are the neural substrates of cognitive development, what processes regulate their development, and how does change at the neural level correspond to change at the cognitive and behavioral level? To investigate these issues, this framework will be applied to a variety of cognitive developmental phenomena, including Piagetian developmental tasks, the development of executive function, and outstanding issues in developmental plasticity. Active development: A computational investigation of midbrain dopamine systems in the development of executive function: Converging evidence suggests that midbrain dopamine systems constitute a behavioral system that fuels the child's active exploration, a critical but poorly understood component of development. This research will apply a computational model of midbrain dopamine projections to the development of human executive function, which underlies flexible behavior. Specifically, this project will construct a computational framework to investigate the crucial but poorly understood developmental links between dopaminergic systems and prefrontal cortex in the emergence of working memory, behavioral inhibition, and executive function.This research will develop alongside both an undergraduate and graduate educational program that will include the creation of a new graduate program in Cognition in the Computational and Neural Systems Program at the California Institute of Technology. Caltech has recently made a strong commitment to fostering interdisciplinary research and education in the cognitive and behavioral sciences, making it an ideal environment in which to pursue this career development plan.