Event Details:
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This is a special seminar co-sponsored by the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance.
Cognitive plasticity through neurofeedback
Abstract
Despite our remarkable capabilities, humans are prone to errors. We lose focus, forget, struggle to learn, make bad decisions, and have conflicts. Some of these limitations are adaptive or reflect useful constraints on behavior. Others may be trainable and help us each become the best version of ourselves. Cognitive training based on behavior can be effective in some circumstances but has often proven more effective when supplemented with brain signals. This is typically done by recording the brain of a participant during a cognitive task, analyzing their data in real-time, and altering the task or providing online feedback about the contents or state of their brain activity. I will present our attempts to use this kind of closed-loop, real-time neurofeedback during functional magnetic resonance imaging, in the cognitive domains of attention, memory, and learning. The findings hold promise and lessons for the future of human brain-computer interfaces.
Nick Turk-Browne, PhD
Wu Tsai Institute, Yale University
Nick Turk-Browne is Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, and Neurosurgery, and Director of the Wu Tsai Institute at Yale University. He previously served on the faculty at Princeton University (2009-2017) and obtained degrees from Yale University in cognitive psychology (PhD, 2009) and from the University of Toronto in cognitive science and artificial intelligence (HBSc, 2004). His research uses behavioral, neural, computational, and developmental approaches to understand the learning mechanisms that transform perceptual experiences into lasting memories. His lab has been supported by the NIH, NSF, Templeton Foundation, McDonnell Foundation, Intel Labs, and Meta Reality Labs. He was honored with early-career awards from the American Psychological Association (2015), Vision Sciences Society (2016), Cognitive Neuroscience Society (2017), and Society of Experimental Psychologists (2018), and he is a Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (since 2016).
Hosted by - Anthony Wagner (Stanford Memory Lab, view host profile below)
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About the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Seminar Series
The Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute seminar series brings together the Stanford neuroscience community to discuss cutting-edge, cross-disciplinary brain research, from biochemistry to behavior and beyond.
Topics include new discoveries in fundamental neurobiology; advances in human and translational neuroscience; insights from computational and theoretical neuroscience; and the development of novel research technologies and neuro-engineering breakthroughs.
Unless otherwise noted, seminars are held Thursdays at 12:00 noon PT.
Questions? Contact neuroscience@stanford.edu
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