MRI: Acquisition of an EEG for Cognitive Research

该项目支持收购集成脑电图（EEG）系统（ActiCHamp 64有源电极，Brain Products GmbH），以在纽约州立大学老韦斯特伯里分校（SUNY-OW）建立第一个EEG实验室。由于60-70%的学生来自历史上代表性不足的少数民族，纽约州立大学俄亥俄分校是纽约州立大学64个校区中最多元化的校园，也是美国最多元化的校园之一。脑电图是一种非侵入性的神经成像技术，它可以在神经认知过程实时展开的同时，以毫秒精度监测人类大脑活动。当这些认知过程被时间锁定在一个事件上，然后在多个试验中进行平均，得到的事件相关电位（erp）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空数据。州立大学俄亥俄分校的脑电图实验室在发展认知、情感和社会神经科学的前沿研究方面至关重要，以教育和培训学生。该奖项为建立电生理学和认知神经科学的跨学科研究项目提供了一个独特的倡议，该项目包括生物学、认知、发展、社会、临床心理学、老年学和其他相关领域的几位研究人员。EEG实验室将在纽约州立大学俄亥俄分校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、纽约州立大学法明代尔分校、长岛大学、当地社区学院和高中。通过为SUNY-OW的本科生和研究生提供尖端的神经科学研究和培训机会，研究人员将提高主要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，并且可以在跨行业和学术界的学科中转移。该研究主要关注与情绪和社会认知处理相关的四个领域。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，以更好地理解抑郁和焦虑的症状。其次，研究人员调查了感知身体内部状态的主观能力是否与“自我”感的改善有关，“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/或任务中的变化作出反应的能力）及其与大学学业成绩的关系。最后，研究人员检查了年轻人与老年人对衰老的内在刻板印象的差异。虽然之前的行为和自我报告数据提供了重要的、基础的认知过程，但该团队的分析提供了一个机会，可以描述早期的注意力导向认知低阶过程和后来的、更努力的、自我导向的认知高阶过程，这些过程与记忆和情绪激活有关。因此，该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，这些过程可以预测整个生命周期中多个领域的健康状况。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.