REU Site: Summer Research in Neuroimaging for Cognitive Neuroscience

该网站由国防部与NSF REU计划合作提供支持。该项目将为本科生提供有关测量人类大脑活动方法的培训。对大脑活动的测量是服务于国家利益的一些努力的关键，包括诊断和治疗各种疾病，提高情报和军事人员的效力，以及为儿童和成人制定改进的教育和培训方法。该项目将在为期10周的暑期课程中为不同的本科生群体提供强化培训。培训将使这些学生能够满足学术界内外正在进行的项目中的关键需求，并最终发展自己的项目，促进国家利益。该计划将从为期两周的全天新兵训练营开始，涵盖测量大脑活动的基本方法(如磁共振成像，MRI)，随后将在尖端研究实验室进行为期8周的安置。频繁的研讨会将为学生提供他们在未来职业生涯中取得成功所需的额外专业技能。神经成像是认知神经科学中最常用的实验室工具，有助于统一该领域并推动研究进展。然而，神经影像的本科培训一直滞后，因为它的成本很高，而且相对技术化。这反过来又让研究人员很难识别和招募学生进入他们使用神经成像的认知神经科学实验室，同时也给他们带来了巨大的培训负担。拟议计划的目标是克服认知神经科学在神经成像方面的培训差距。在为期10周的暑期课程中，本科生将获得神经成像方法的详细知识，并获得在研究项目中使用这些方法的丰富经验。为期两周的成像新兵训练营将为学员提供功能磁共振成像和脑电成像设备。然后，学生们将在顶级认知神经科学实验室内进行为期8周的基于成像的个人研究项目。每周两次的研讨会将涵盖研究伦理、科学写作、设计研究生院申请程序、如何驾驭实验室结构以及该领域的内容等主题。额外的小组活动将形成一个对神经成像有共同兴趣的受训者的联合队列。学员将参与的研究项目将共同推动该领域向前发展，用最先进的方法严格测试关键假设。参与研究的实验室都有记录良好的此类研究的记录。这些实验室跨越该领域的三个子领域，感知、认知和临床应用，调查主题的例子包括从增强记忆力和创造力的技术，到青少年吸毒成瘾的基础因素，再到帮助听力丧失的人的言语理解的干预措施。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This site is supported by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program. This project will provide undergraduate students training in methods to measure brain activity in humans. Measurements of brain activity are key to a number of efforts that serve the national interest, including diagnosing and treating a wide variety of diseases, enhancing effectiveness of intelligence and military personnel, and developing improved educational and training methods for both children and adults. The project will give intensive training to a diverse group of undergraduate students over the course of a 10 week summer program. The training will allow these students to fill critical needs in ongoing projects, both within and outside academia, and to eventually develop their own projects advancing the national interest. The program will begin with a 2-week full day boot camp to cover basics of the methods to measure brain activity (such as magnetic resonance imaging, MRI), which will be followed by an 8 week placement in a cutting edge research lab. Frequent seminars will provide students with the additional professional skills they need to succeed in their future careers. Neuroimaging is the most commonly used laboratory tool in in Cognitive Neuroscience, helping to unify the field and drive research progress. Undergraduate training in neuroimaging, however, has lagged because of its high cost and relatively technical nature. This in turn has made it difficult for researchers to identify and recruit students into their Cognitive Neuroscience laboratories that use neuroimaging, while also placing a large training burden upon them. The goal of the proposed program is to overcome the training gap in neuroimaging for cognitive neuroscience. Over the course of a 10-week summer program undergraduate students will gain both detailed knowledge of neuroimaging methods and intensive experience using them in a research project. A 2-week imaging boot camp will give trainees facility with fMRI and EEG imaging modalities. Students will then conduct individual 8-week imaging-based research projects within top Cognitive Neuroscience labs. Twice weekly seminars will cover topics such as research ethics, scientific writing, crafting graduate school applications, and how to navigate laboratory structure, as well as the content of the field. Additional group activities will form a bonded cohort of trainees with common interests in neuroimaging. The research projects in which trainees will participate will collectively drive the field forward, rigorously testing key hypotheses with state-of-the-art methods. The participating laboratories have well-documented track records of such research. The labs span three subdomains in the field, perception, cognition, and clinical applications, and examples of topics under investigation range from techniques to enhance memory and creativity, to factors that underlie drug addiction in teenagers, to interventions to aid speech comprehension in people with hearing loss.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.