An ERP laboratory for collaborative cognitive neuroscience research

滑铁卢大学心理学系越来越重视使用神经科学方法来衡量潜在的认知过程。在过去的五年里，滑铁卢的研究在以下领域取得了长足的进步：衰老的认知神经科学，中风和阿尔茨海默病等神经疾病的后果，意识感知经验的神经关联，以及日常人类能力涉及的基本过程，如决策、记忆和注意力。随着与事件相关的大脑成像的增加，这项工作将在理解这种广泛的大脑行为关系方面取得更快的进展。具体地说，测量大脑中神经活动产生的事件相关电位将使这一庞大而充满活力的研究小组能够更详细地探索记忆、注意力、感知和决策等基本功能的基础过程。重要的是，这种与事件相关的脑成像设施的开发不仅将推进滑铁卢大学目前的研究项目，还将使我们系能够吸引和培训希望研究需要这种方法的神经科学问题的顶尖本科生和研究生。最终结果将是加拿大高素质人才的增加，以及加拿大大学研究人员开展的尖端科学的知名度的提高。

There is a rapidly growing emphasis in the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo towards using neuroscientific methods for measuring underlying cognitive processes. In the past five years, research at Waterloo has made great strides in areas such as the cognitive neuroscience of aging, the consequences of neurological disorders such as stroke and Alzheimer's disease, the neural correlates of conscious perceptual experience, as well as in basic processes involved in everyday human capacities such as decision making, memory, and attention. This work stands to make even more rapid advances in understanding this wide range of brain-behaviour relationships with the addition of event-related brain imaging. Specifically, measuring the event related potentials generated by neural activity in the brain will enable this large and vibrant group of researchers to explore in greater detail the processes that underlie such basic functions as memory, attention, perception, and decision making. Importantly, the development of such a facility for event related brain imaging will not only advance the research programs currently in place at the University of Waterloo, but will also enable our department to attract and train top-tier undergraduate and graduate students wishing to study neuroscientific questions that demand this methodology.  The ultimate result will be an increase in highly qualified personnel in Canada, and an increase in the profile of cutting edge science being conducted by researchers at Canadian universities.