Equipment for the analysis and storage of cognitive neuroimaging data

注意力和情绪对于人类的正常运作都是至关重要的。我们对这些官能的理解有一个重要的进展，那就是最近发现，选择性注意的操作可以对视觉刺激产生情感影响。例如，忽视抽象的视觉模式(而不是关注它)会导致该模式随后的情感贬值。这样的结果反映了一个关于人脑中两个主要的优先排序系统的基本发现。然而，这种新现象背后的认知和神经机制尚未被揭示。这项研究是在我的NSERC Discovery Grant申请中提出的，名为“注意力-情绪相互作用：选择性注意力的情感后果”，将行为研究与功能磁共振成像(FMRI)相结合，揭示了当注意力影响情感反应时，大脑区域的网络。然而，fMRI分析所涉及的数据集的大小和处理量需要使用专门的工作站和数据存储解决方案。因此，这里要求的工作站和数据存储系统对于拟议的关于注意力和情绪如何共同作用来指导我们的思想和行为的调查至关重要。通过提供对大脑注意力和情绪系统如何相互作用的更丰富的理解，这项研究计划的结果有望为解决当这些系统受到疾病、神经障碍和中风影响时发生的功能障碍提供更坚实的基础。

Attention and emotion are both critical for normal human functioning. An important development in our understanding of these faculties concerns the recent finding that operations of selective attention can have affective consequences for visual stimuli. For example, ignoring an abstract visual pattern (versus attending to it) leads to a subsequent emotional devaluation of that pattern. Such results reflect a fundamental discovery about the two main systems of prioritization in the human brain. However, the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying this novel phenomenon have yet to be revealed. The research proposed in my NSERC Discovery Grant application, "Attention-emotion interactions: The affective consequences of selective attention" combines behavioural studies with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to reveal the network of brain regions that are recruited when attention impacts affective responses. The size of the datasets and amount of processing involved in fMRI analysis, however, require the use of specialized workstations and data storage solutions. The workstation and data storage system requested here are therefore critical for the proposed investigation of how attention and emotion operate together to guide our thoughts and behaviour. By providing a richer understanding of how the brain systems of attention and emotion interact, the results of this research program are expected to provide a stronger foundation for addressing impairments in function that occur when these systems are affected by illness, neurological disorders, and stroke.