Marlene Behrmann's Research on Autism Featured By Carnegie Mellon University

Marlene Behrmann doesn't play it safe. In a quest for answers, the Carnegie Mellon University professor of psychology and her colleagues recently published a study that blew apart a long and widely-held theory regarding autism's cause.

The controversial study involved the 'mirror neuron system' — a single neuron in this system responds both when an individual performs an action (e.g. picking up a raisin) and when the individual observes someone else performing the very same action. As autistic individuals have difficulty interpreting social cues, researchers had theorized that a malfunction of this mirror neuron system was a cause — or possibly even the cause — of the disorder.

Read More at CMU...

CNBC Researchers Featured By Thomson Reuters ScienceWatch and Essential Science Indicators

Thomson Reuters ScienceWatch® and Essential Science Indicators℠ has selected "Cerebellum and Nonmotor Function" (Annu. Rev. Neurosci./ 32: 413-34, 2009) by Peter L. Strick, Richard P. Dum and Julie A. Fiez as a featured New Hot Paper in the field of Neuroscience & Behavior.  This means the article is one of the most-cited papers in this discipline published during the past two years.

CMU researcher Marlene Behrmann featured in NewScientist.com article

"Humans are naturally so good at this, it's difficult to see our inner workings," says Marlene Behrmann, a psychologist who studies vision at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Read more at newscientist.com...

Neuronal Diversity Makes a Difference:

Heterogeneous Groups of Neurons Transmit Twice as Much Information as Homogeneous Groups

PITTSBURGH-Much like snowflakes, no two neurons are exactly alike. But it's not the size or shape that sets one neuron apart from another, it's the way it responds to incoming stimuli. Carnegie Mellon University researchers have discovered that this diversity is critical to overall brain function and essential in how neurons process complex stimuli and code information. The researchers published their findings, the first to examine the function of neuron diversity, online in Nature Neuroscience.

Read more at cmu.edu...

Carnegie Mellon University Ranked #2 in Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence by US News & World Report

U.S. News & World Report recently published undergraduate program rankings for the 2010 year.  According to the organizaiton, Carnegie Mellon University Cognitive Psychology and Artificial Intelligence programs rank #2 in the nation.  Congratulations to CMU faculty, staff, and students!

CNBC Alum Todd Braver roughs it for science

GLEN CANYON NATIONAL RECREATION AREA, Utah — Mr. Braver, a psychology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, was one of five neuroscientists on an unusual journey. They spent a week in late May in this remote area of southern Utah, rafting the San Juan River, camping on the soft banks and hiking the tributary canyons.  Read more...

Behrmann interviewed by Pittsburgh Post Gazette

CNBC faculty member, Marlene Behrmann, was interviewed by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette for the article, "Study Challenges One View of Autism."

Lee's student receives SCS Alumni Award

Thomas Jacques, a student of Tai Sing Lee, has won the 2010 SCS Alumni Award for Undergraduate Excellence for his work entitled "EyesOn Mobile Eye Tracking."  The Alumni Award committee writes: "Thomas Jacques’ thesis, EyesOn Mobile Eye Tracking is a very good example of the spirit of the Alumni Award for Undergraduate Research Excellence. Two important criteria for the award are “Contribution to the State of the Art” and “Accessibility”, meaning that the work is of high quality but that it has a practical application and is exciting and accessible to the alumni community.  Thomas’ project used inexpensive imaging technology to create an eye tracking device to be used as a computer input device with a goal of helping people with disabilities. He achieved reasonable success within the constraints that he had set for himself and therefore was the recipient of our award. Congratulations Thomas!"

The 2009 SCS Alumni Award for Undergraduate Excellence was awarded to PNC Fellow, Andrew Maas, who worked with both Charles Kemp and Tai Sing Lee.  Andrew was also co-winner of 2nd place of the Yahoo! Undergraduate Research Award.  He shared the honor with Matt Bonakdarpour who is also a PNC Fellow.  Matt has worked with both Tom Mitchell and Dave Touretzky.

Congratulations to all!

CNBC Scientists receive Carnegie Science Awards

CNBC scientists, Andy Schwartz and Alison Barth, are honored with Carnegie Science Awards recognizing innovation in Science and Technology. Congratulations!

Behrmann featured in Pittsburgh Post Gazette

CNBC scientist, Marlene Behrmann, was featured in a Post-Gazette article "About Faces" and on-line video.

Tarr awarded George A. And Helen Dunham Cowan Professorship

Michael Tarr, co-director of the CNBC and Professor of Psychology, was awarded the George A. And Helen Dunham Cowan Professorship in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. The professorship was created through the generosity George and Helen Cowan of Los Alamos, NM. Dr. Cowan, a nuclear chemist, earned his PhD in Chemistry from Carnegie Tech in 1950. He is also the recipient of a CIT Honorary Degree (2002) and is an Alumni Award Recipient (2001). Dr. Cowan worked on the Manhattan Project, is the recipient of the Enrico Fermi Award, and was the founder of the Santa Fe Institute.

CNBC uPNC Student awarded Whitaker Scholarship for International Research and Study

Undergraduate PNC student and graduating senior, Matt Perich, has won a Whitaker Scholarship for International Research and Study.  Matt will use the award to to fund his research position with the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne's Blue Brain Project Research team in Switzerland starting this September.  Matt will graduate May 2, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh's Swanson School of Engineering.  Congratulations, Matt!  See full press release.

CNBC Students awarded NSF Fellowships

Erin Crowder, Ran Liu, and Aarthi Padamanabhan received awards from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program.  Patrick Sadtler, Alba Tuninetti, Kriston Wilson, and Bronwyn Woods received honorable mention in the competition.  Congratulations to our students for a job well done!

CNBC Faculty member delivers Presidential Invited Address

Rob Kass, professor of statistics, gave the Presidential Invited Address at the annual meeting of the Eastern North American Region of the International Biometrics Society on Tuesday, March 23 in New Orleans. Kass spoke about "Bayes, BARS, and Brains: Statistics and Machine Learning in the Analysis of Neural Spike Train Data."

Pittsburgh team wins MEG data analysis competition

A team from Pittsburgh (Jinyin Zhang, Gus Sudre, and Xin Li) has won the MEG data analysis competition associated with the 17th International Conference on Biomagnetism (BIOMAG 2010). They'll collect their 500 Euro prize and present their results on March 30th, 2010 at the meeting in Croatia.  One member of the team, Gus Sudre, is a student in the CNBC's Ph.D. Program in Neural Computation.  Congratulations, Jinyin, Gus, and Xin!

CNBC Student, Faculty, and Alumnus share authorship on Neuron article

An article published in the most recent issue of Neuron features the collaboration of CNBC Student, Anoopum Gupta, CNBC Faculty member, David Touretzky, and CNBC Alumnus, David Redish. The work was primarily done by David Touretzky's student, Anoopum Gupta, through an IGERT fellowship. For the experimental part, Anoopum went to David Redish's lab in Minnesota, where he learned to do recording in rats. Redish was one of the earliest graduates of the CNBC program. See the paper and commentary.
Carnegie Mellon press release: Carnegie Mellon Research Provides Insight Into Brain’s Decision-Making Process

CNBC Faculty Member Tom Mitchell Elected to Prestigious National Academy of Engineering

Nathan Urban Named Head of Biological Sciences

Congratulations to Nathan N. Urban, a member of the CNBC executive committee. Nathan has been named head of the Department of Biological Sciences, effective March 1. He succeeds Professor John Woolford, who has served as interim department head since the passing of Elizabeth Jones in June 2009.

"Nathan was one of the outstanding young faculty hired during Beth Jones' headship and is a leader in neurobiology research," said Fred Gilman, dean of the Mellon College of Science. "I am very much looking forward to working with Nathan as the Department of Biological Sciences builds for the future both internally and through bridges to other departments, centers, and schools at Carnegie Mellon."

A member of the Carnegie Mellon faculty since 2002, Urban is best known for his research into the molecular, cellular and circuit-level mechanisms of sensory processing in the olfactory system. His work is providing scientists with a better understanding of how neurons network with one another in learning and disease.

"This is a very exciting time for the department and for biomedical sciences across campus," said Urban, who was named one of the nation's top 50 science and technology innovators by Scientific American in 2005. "The field of biology is changing rapidly as new technologies and quantitative approaches are applied to fundamental questions about living systems. Carnegie Mellon is poised to emerge as a leader in these nascent areas that stand to revolutionize the field."

Alison Barth Receives Humbolt Foundation Research Award To Study In Germany

Alison Barth, associate professor of biological sciences, has received a Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award from Germany's Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The award will allow Barth to spend seven months in Germany to work on research projects with neuroscientist Michael Brecht at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin. Read more...

Ground Broken for New Carnegie Mellon Imaging Center

Marcel Just, the D.O. Hebb Professor of Psychology and director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging; John Lehoczky, dean of the College of Humanities & Social Sciences (HSS); Michael Tarr, professor and co-director of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition; Tim Keller, scientist; Marlene Behrmann, professor; and Walt Schneider of the University of Pittsburgh, celebrated the groundbreaking for a new Carnegie Mellon imaging center, which will be located in Wean Hall 3604. Read more...

Assistant Professor (Tenure-Track) in Computational Neuroscience

The School of Computer Science and the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition (CNBC) at Carnegie Mellon University are jointly soliciting applications for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor in computational neuroscience. Read More and apply...

The MNTP Summer Workshop Program is now accepting applications

The MNTP Summer Workshop Program is now accepting application for participants for our fourth year of the program. Please see the attached flyer for information and also visit the MNTP website @ www.mntp.pitt.edu for more information.

Fifth International Workshop Statistical Analysis of Neuronal Data (SAND5)