MRI: Acquisition of an EEG for Cognitive Research

该项目支持购买综合脑电系统(ActiCHamp活性电极，Brain Products GMBH)，以在纽约州立大学老韦斯特伯里分校建立第一个脑电实验室(纽约州立大学老韦斯特伯里分校)。俄亥俄州立大学60%-70%的学生来自历史上代表性不足的少数族裔人口，是校园系统中最多元化的校园，也是美国最多元化的校园之一。EEG是一种非侵入性的神经成像技术，可以在神经认知过程实时展开的同时，以毫秒级的精度监控人类的大脑活动。当这些认知过程被时间锁定到一个事件，然后在多个试验中求平均值时，所产生的事件相关电位(ERPs)可以提供与神经认知过程发生的时间和地点相关的丰富的时间和空间数据。俄亥俄州立大学的脑电实验室在发展认知、情感和社会神经科学的前沿研究以教育和培训学生方面起着至关重要的作用。这一奖项使一项独特的倡议得以在电生理学和认知神经科学领域建立一个跨学科研究计划，其中包括生物、认知、发展、社会、临床心理学、老年学和其他相关领域的几名研究人员。EEG实验室将在俄亥俄州立大学和周边校园之间建立一个独特的研究和培训联盟，包括纽约理工学院、法明戴尔州立大学、长岛大学以及当地社区学院和高中。通过为纽约州立大学的本科生和研究生提供尖端的神经科学研究和培训机会，研究人员将提高大多数未被充分代表的学生在心理生理学、神经科学和其他科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)领域的技能。这些技能是非常可取的，可以在跨行业和跨学术界的学科之间转移。这项研究集中在与情绪和社会认知加工相关的四个领域。首先，研究小组分析了与注意力和任务投入相关的早期反应锁定成分，以更好地了解抑郁和焦虑的症状。其次，研究人员调查感知身体内部状态的主观能力是否与改善的“自我”感有关，“自我”感是身体和心理健康的关键预测因素。第三，研究小组考察了影响认知灵活性的因素(即对环境和/或任务变化的反应能力)及其与大学学业成绩的关系。最后，研究人员检查了与老年人相比，年轻人对衰老的内在化刻板印象的差异。虽然之前的行为和自我报告数据提供了对感兴趣的认知过程的重要的、基础性的洞察，但该团队的分析提供了机会，从较晚的、更努力和自我导向的与记忆和情绪激活相关的早期注意力定向认知低阶过程。因此，这项研究为这些心理现象背后的认知机制提供了一种细粒度和系统性的方法，并进一步有助于该领域对生物心理社会和社会情感过程的理解，这些过程可以预测一生中的多个领域的幸福感。这一奖项反映了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 project supports the acquisition of an integrated electroencephalography (EEG) system (ActiCHamp 64 active-electrodes, Brain Products GmbH) to establish the first EEG laboratory at The State University of New York at Old Westbury (SUNY-OW). With 60-70% of the student body identifying as coming from a historically underrepresented minority population, SUNY-OW is the most diverse campus within the 64-campus SUNY system and one of the most diverse campuses in the United States. EEG is a non-invasive neuroimaging technique that allows the monitoring of human cerebral activity with millisecond precision while neurocognitive processes unfold in real-time. When these cognitive processes are time-locked to an event and then averaged over multiple trials, the resulting event-related potentials (ERPs) can provide rich temporal and spatial data related to when and where neurocognitive processes occur. The EEG laboratory at SUNY-OW is critical in developing cutting-edge research in cognitive, affective, and social neuroscience to educate and train its students. This award enables a unique initiative to establish an interdisciplinary research program in electrophysiology and cognitive neuroscience that includes several researchers in biological, cognitive, developmental, social, and clinical psychology, gerontology, and other related fields. The EEG laboratory will create a unique research and training consortium between SUNY-OW and surrounding campuses, including The New York Institute of Technology, SUNY at Farmingdale, Long Island University, and local community colleges and high schools. By providing cutting-edge neuroscience research and training opportunities for SUNY-OW’s undergraduate and graduate students, researchers will increase predominantly underrepresented students skills in psychophysiology, neuroscience, and other domains of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). These skills are highly desirable and transferrable across disciplines spanning industry and academia. The research focuses on four areas of interest related to emotional and social cognitive processing. First, the team analyzes early, response-locked components that are associated with attention and task engagement to better understand symptoms of depression and anxiety. Second, the investigators investigate whether the subjective ability to sense the body’s internal states is associated with improved senses of “self,” a key predictor of physical and psychological well-being. Third, the team examines factors influencing cognitive flexibility (i.e., the ability to respond to changes in the environment and/or within tasks) and its association with academic achievement in college. Finally, the researchers examine the difference in internalized stereotypes about aging in younger adults compared to older adults. Although previous behavioral and self-report data provide important, foundational insight into the cognitive processes of interest, the team's analyses provide the opportunity to delineate early attentional orienting cognitive lower-order processes from later, more effortful and self-oriented cognitive higher-order processes associated with memory and emotion activation. Therefore, the research provides a fine-grained and systematic approach to the cognitive mechanisms that underlie these psychological phenomena and further contribute to the field’s understanding of biopsychosocial and socioemotional processes that can predict multiple domains of wellbeing across the lifespan.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.