Administrative Core

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Abstract This Conte Center represents a collaboration of five senior scientists and several accomplished junior scientists, with expertise spanning domains of neural systems studies in humans, cellular and neuron ensemble studies in nonhuman primates and computational modeling, addressing brain operations at each level. We focus on a critical issue of broad scientific and translational importance – the brain's rhythmic dynamics and their mechanistic roles as instruments that the brain uses to optimize its goal-directed sampling of information, or “Active Sensing.” We are all leaders in our fields, as shown by our records of publications, grants and conceptual/technical innovation. We each bring with us networks of trainees and colleagues who share our dedication to find a break-through in our mechanistic understanding of brain dynamics, as well as a clear recognition that this is by necessity a multidisciplinary enterprise, ideally suited to, and in fact requiring, a support mechanism like the Conte Center. Core A has several necessary supervisory and administrative functions, including serving as the communication backbone of the Center, and maintaining the highest standards of ethical and financial accountability across the Center. This core will also be responsible for supporting evaluative and constructive activities including the annual External Scientific Advisory Committee meeting, the semiannual Internal Scientific and Educational Advisory Committee meetings, and the semi-monthly Steering Committee meetings. This Core will support educational outreach activities including: 1) the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE), 2) the diversity and Under-Represented Minority Fellowship program, 3) the Women-in-Science Symposia, 4) the Center's Seminar Series at Columbia, 5) a weekly Web Journal Club, and 6) the Center's participation in a science journal for teenagers initiated by 2 of our Project Leaders – Frontiers for Young Minds. (http://kids.frontiersin.org/). Core A will support team- building, scientific exchange and programmatic refinement of the Center during the Annual Center Retreat, and several levels of technical support to Projects and Cores, as well as a Center Website and other forms of Public Outreach. In this revised application, we are significantly expanding the Center's emphasis on electrical stimulation and pharmacological manipulations that provide more direct access to underlying “causal” mechanisms, and Core A support is critical to that venture. Beyond all of this this our overarching goal is to provide the greatest possible support for synergy across projects in the Center and for the Center's intellectual agility so that it can exploit new discoveries, and adapt to problems and challenges that emerge during its funding cycle. We will pursue this goal on multiple levels. The timeline of Core A activities relative to the Center as a whole is given in “Overall” Fig 17.