CNS 2015 Program Highlights
 Keynote Address:“The neuroscience of aesthetics and art” Anjan Chatterjee, University of Pennsylvania |
 2015 George A. MillerAwardee: “The Neurogenetics of Language” Patricia Kuhl, University of Washington |
 2015 Distinguished Career Contributions Awardee:“45 years of Cognitive Electrophysiology: neither just psychology nor just the brain but the visible electrical interface between the twain” Marta Kutas, University of California, San Diego |
2015 Young Investigator Awardees:
Donna Rose Addis, PhD, The University of Auckland, New Zealand, “Constructive Episodic Simulation of Future Events”
Christopher Summerfield, Oxford University “Do humans make good decisions?”
Invited Symposium: 1 “The renaissance of EEG: An old dog teaching us new tricks”, Chair: Micah Murray, University Hospital Center and University of Lausanne . Speakers: Christoph Michel; University of Geneva, Switzerland; Micah Murray, University Hospital Center and University of Lausanne, Switzerland, EEG Brain Mapping Core of the Center for Biomedical Imaging, Switzerland, Vanderbilt University; Charles Schroeder, The Nathan Kline Institute, Orangeburg, NY, USA, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA; José del Millán; Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland.
This symposium highlights how the humble EEG has proven itself a remarkably information-rich, versatile, accessible, and cost-effective neuroimaging method. However, many researchers using EEG fail to capitalize on the breadth of the technique’s full capabilities. The goal of this symposium is therefore to present a selection of key and avant-garde uses of EEG in cognitive, clinical, and trans-species neuroscience presented in a tutorial style. The first two talks will provide evidence for EEG being a true neuroimaging method. The other two talks will show the richness of information available from EEG that comes with applications of advances in signal processing. Christoph Michel will explain the basics of spatio-temporal analysis of multichannel EEG and will demonstrate the spatial precision of EEG source imaging. Micah Murray will detail how many of the long-assumed shortcomings of event-related potential (ERP) analysis can be overcome by combining high-density recordings with data-driven, multivariate analyses that provide direct neurophysiologic interpretability. Charles Schroeder will demonstrate how oscillatory brain dynamics provide critical insights into quintessential mechanisms of signal transmission within and between brain regions that in turn reveal the fundamental principles of attentional control over sensation and action. Finally, José Millán will demonstrate the critical insights provided by advanced EEG signal analysis in the continued development of neurotechnologies and neuroprostheses.
Invited Symposium: 2 “The Changing Brain—Insights from Lifespan Cognitive Neuroscience”, Co-Chairs: Patricia A. Reuter-Lorenz, University of Michigan and Michael D. Rugg, University of Texas at Dallas. Speakers: Patricia A. Reuter-Lorenz, University of Michigan; Michael D. Rugg, University of Texas at Dallas Lorraine K; Tyler, University of Cambridge; Ulman Lindenberger, Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
Over the last 25 years, cognitive neuroscience research has greatly advanced our understanding of the aging mind and brain, and provided important insights into neurocognitive function in young adults, and across the lifespan. The speakers in this symposium will discuss their research on executive function, language, memory, and plasticity, highlighting how research on the older brain can improve understanding of brain function more generally.
Invited Symposium: 3 “Decisions, Emotion, the Self, and Medial Prefrontal Cortex”, Chair: Scott Huettel, Duke University. Speakers: Scott Huettel, Duke University; Lesley Fellows, Montreal Neurological Institute; Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, University College London; Mauricio Delgado, Rutgers University, Newark.
Many sub-areas of cognitive neuroscience claim the medial prefrontal cortex for their own. This large and cytoarchitectonically diverse region has been linked to a broad range of functions: behavioral control, experience and regulation of emotions, social cognition and the sense of self, and computing the value of actions. This symposium will examine the medial prefrontal cortex from each of these perspectives to identify common processes and organizational properties that shed light on its function.
Mini-Symposium 1: “What can be, or should be, the relationship between language and neuroscience?” Chair: Hanna Gauvin, Ghent University
Talk 1: David Poeppel , Max Planck Institute, “Correlational, integrated, and explanatory neuroscience of language”.
Talk 2: Sophie Scott, University College London, “The brain doesn’t care about your experiment”.
Talk 3: Fred Dick, Birkbeck College, University of London, “Linguistics and cognitive neuroscience: it’s time to take diversity seriously”.
Mini-Symposium 2: “Zooming-in on the hippocampus: Advances in high-resolution imaging in the context of cognitive aging and dementia” Chair: Raftali Raz, Wayne State University
Talk 1: Susanne Mueller, University of California at San Francisco, “Insights into Neuroanatomical Correlates of Episodic Memory from Localized Effects of Cerebrovascular Disease”
Talk 2: Michael Yassa, University of California at Irvine, “Differential role of Hippocampal Subfields and Hippocampal Connectivity in Memory”.
Talk 3: Geoffrey Kirchner, Stanford University school of Medicine, “Laminar atrophy in the hippocampus and memory deficits”.
Talk 4: Craig Stark, University of California at Irvine, “Differential Vulnerability of the Hippocampal Subfields as a Tool for Refining Neuroanatomy of Memory”.
Mini-Symposium 3: “Reasoning: Origins and Development” Chair: Kathy Mann Koepke, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)/NIH
Talk 1: Aaron Blaisdell, UCLA, “Comparative behavioral neuroscience of reasoning processes”.
Talk 2: Silvia Bunge, University of California at Berkeley, “Neural mechanisms, development, and plasticity of reasoning”.
Talk 3: Frank Keil, Yale University, “The Development of Reasoning and the Extended Mind”.
Talk 4: Daniel Krawczyk, University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Texas-Southwestern Medical Center, “Clinical implications for deficits of reasoning: Evidence from Autism Spectrum Disorders and Traumatic Brain Injury”.
Mini-Symposium 4: “Cerebellar Contributions to learning and cognition” Chair: Richard Ivry, University of California, Berkeley, Co-Chair: Arseny Sokolov, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland
Talk 1: Rich Ivry, University of California, Berkeley, “The Predictive Brain: Cerebellar contributions to action and cognition”.
Talk 2: Aparna Suvrathan, Stanford University, “Tuning of Synaptic Plasticity for cerebellar learning”.
Talk 3:Arseny Sokolov, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland, “Interactions between the cerebellum and temporal cortex during action perception”.
Talk 4:Julie Fiez, University of Pittsburgh, “Contributions of the cerebellum to reading development”.
Mini-Symposium 5: “Disrupting the face perception network”, Chair: David Pitcher, NIMH
Talk 1: Arash Afraz, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “The causal role of face-selective neurons in face perception”.
Talk 2: Marlene Behrmann, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, USA, “Reverse engineering the face perception system: insights from congenital prosopagnosia”.
Talk 3: David Pitcher, National Institute of Mental Health, “Transient disruption in the face perception network: combining TMS and fMRI”.
Talk 4: Kevin Weiner, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, “The human face processing network is resilient after resection of specialized cortical inputs”.
Mini-Symposium 6: “Approaches to identify network connectivity in neuroimaging”, Chair: Vaughn Steele, The Mind Research Network, Co-Chair: Vince Calhoun, The Mind Research Network
Talk 1: Vaughn R. Steele, The Mind Research Network, “Neuroimaging measures of cognitive control: Extracting reliable signals”
Talk 2: Edward M. Bernat, University of Maryland, “Indexing Dynamic Functional Integration using Bivariate Time-Frequency Phase-Synchrony with Event-Related Potential Data”
Talk 3: Selin Aviyente, Michigan State University, “A tensor-based approach to tracking dynamics of functional connectivity in the brain”
Talk 4: Vince D. Calhoun, The Mind Research, “NetworkThe chronnectome: time-varying connectivity networks as the next frontier in fMRI data discovery”
Mini-Symposium 7: “Interactions Between the Prefrontal Cortex and the Medial-Temporal Lobes Supporting the Control of Memory Retrieval”, Chair: Michael Anderson, University of Cambridge
Talk 1: Helen Barbas, Boston University, “Primate prefrontal pathways to rhinal areas affect the input and output of the hippocampus and memory”.
Talk 2: Michael Anderson, University of Cambridge, “A right dorsolateral prefrontal pathway supports the suppression of mnemonic functions in the hippocampus”.
Talk 3:David Badre, Brown University, “Separable ventral and dorsal frontal pathways supporting cognitive control during retrieval”.
Talk 4: Howard Eichenbaum, Boston University, “An animal model system for understanding prefrontal-hippocampal interactions in memory retrieval”.
Mini-Symposium 8: Temporal coordination of neuronal processes by cross-frequency interactions”, Chair: Ole Jensen, Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging
Talk 1: Nikolai Axmacher, German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Bonn, Germany, “Rhythmic working memory activation in the human hippocampus”.
Talk 2: Peter Lakatos, Nathan Kline Institute, Orangeburg, NY, USA, “Slow modulation of cross-frequency oscillatory dynamics in thalamocortical networks”.
Talk 3: Hyojin Park, Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom, “Multiplexed cross-frequency information transfer during continuous speech perception”.
Talk 4: Ole Jensen, Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University, The Netherlands, “How coupled alpha and gamma oscillations might serve to allocate attention”.
Mini-Symposium 9: “Fresh perspectives on social perception: From functional specialization to connectivity”, Chair: Emily Cross, Radboud University Nijmegen, Bangor
Talk 1: Kami Koldewyn, School of Psychology, Bangor University, “Is a region in the Posterior Superior Temporal Sulcus (pSTS) selectively engaged in the perception of social interactions?”
Talk 2: Emily S. Cross, Behavioural Science Institute, “The modulation of sensorimotor connectivity by familiarity during action observation”.
Talk 3: Zeynep Saygin, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT, “Connectivity fingerprints for the social brain”.
