Research Interests

The focus of my research is the early development of the cognitive control functions (including cognitive flexibility & inhibition [e.g., selective attention] -- collectively called executive functions [EF]) dependent on prefrontal cortex, the neuroanatomical, genetic, and neurochemical mechanisms that make those functions possible, and how experiential and biological factors modify them.

My lab integrates behavioural, neuroanatomical, neurochemical, & genetic approaches to study fundamental questions about these abilities, environmental effects on them, and their development throughout the lifespan, but especially in infants, preschoolers, and young school-age children.

We study the development of these abilities (including neurocognitive games for infants & using the same measures with preschoolers through octogenarians),

• their neural bases and modulation by genes and neurochemistry (using functional neuroimaging [fMRI] & molecular genetic techniques),

  for example, we study polymorphisms that affect expression of these EF skills

  • their modulation by the environment (including detrimental factors such as poverty or exposure to teratogens and facilitative factors such as bilingualism, social supports, or school curricula)

  for example, we work on preschool curricula to strengthen these EF skills

  • how they become derailed in disorders (such as ADHD or autism),
  • effective treatments for preventing, ameliorating, or curing disorders,

  for example, we are testing an instructional strategy we developed that we hope will help children with developmental delays, especially such children with autism

  • educational implications ( e.g., why some children have trouble mastering a cognitive skill & how they can be helped to master it),
  • & interrelations between these cognitive functions and motor, perceptual, emotional, & social abilities.

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Current Research Projects - click here.

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Significant Contributions

1. Identifying one of the first in-depth links between early cognitive development and the functions of a specific neural region was a first contribution. By demonstrating that maturation of prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a role in the emergence of working memory and inhibitory skills in infants, this work (a) marked a milestone in the integration of developmental psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience, (b) laid to rest old assumptions that PFC was functionally silent during infancy, and (c) gave encouragement to others that rigorous experimental work addressing brain-behavior relations was possible in infants and that work in neuroscience might inform work in developmental psychology and vice versa.

This body of work started with the insight that a widely used task to study cognitive development in infants (A-not-B) and the behavioral task most firmly linked to dorsolateral PFC in monkeys (delayed response) were virtually the same. People working in developmental psychology and neuroscience had not realized that before because the fields had been so separate. To obtain converging evidence from a very different behavioral paradigm, I modified a transparent barrier detour task devised by Moll and Kuypers, also linked to PFC, and named it "object retrieval." A systematic program of research was undertaken to chart the developmental progression of human infants on each of the 3 tasks, the developmental progression of infant rhesus monkeys on the 3 tasks, the effect of lesions of dorsolateral PFC, posterior parietal cortex, and the hippocampal formation on adult rhesus monkeys' performance of those tasks, and the effect of lesions of dorsolateral PFC on infant rhesus monkeys' performance of the tasks (see Table below). The work challenged the then widely held belief that infants improve in their performance on A-not-B simply because their memory is improving, and that dorsolateral PFC is required simply when information needs to be held briefly in mind. The work indicated that the abilities developing between 7½-12 months were (a) the ability to override a strong action tendency (such as to reach straight for a visible goal or to repeat a previously successful response) as well as (b) the ability to hold information briefly in mind. I’ve hypothesized that it is situations that tax both of those abilities that are when dorsolateral PFC is most clearly required.

2. The most significant practical contributions of my work are discoveries that led to improved treatment for the genetic disorder, phenylketonuria (PKU). The discoveries were (a) to identify the biological mechanism that causes neurobiological changes and cognitive deficits in some PKU children despite treatment, and (b) to discover that the children had visual deficits as well. This work helped to propel two important changes in the medical guidelines for the treatment of PKU in the U.S. and throughout Europe. Those changes, in turn, have made a significant difference in children’s lives.

We successfully investigated my hypothesis concerning why cognitive deficits should still be present in some PKU children despite treatment, and why those deficits might be limited to PFC in children and animal models, combining neurochemical and behavioral work in animals, longitudinal testing of an extensive battery of neurocognitive tasks in children, and studies of visual function. In so doing, we were the first to (a) create an animal model of treated PKU, (b) find cognitive deficits in the genetic mouse model of PKU, and (c) document a visual deficit in children treated for PKU children. It was our painstaking neurocognitive work, though, providing converging evidence, in multiple age groups, with multiple comparison groups (siblings, matched controls, and children from the general population) in a carefully controlled sample that I think proved most convincing.

Having demonstrated that maturational changes in dorsolateral PFC might underlie some of the cognitive advances early in life, one of the next questions was, "What was changing in PFC?" One possible factor was that the level of the neurotransmitter, dopamine, in PFC was increasing. As an initial way of studying the role of dopamine in modulating PFC cognitive functions early in life, I studied a group of children who there was reason to believe had lower levels of DA in PFC, but otherwise basically normal brains: children treated for phenylketonuria (PKU).

Researchers studying PKU children following the prescribed dietary treatment had noted selective cognitive deficits for which they could not account. Researchers studying the mesocortical dopamine system in rats had shown that if there is only a modest reduction in the dopamine precursor, tyrosine, prefrontal cortex is selectively affected. I realized that the latter might provide a mechanism to account for the former. Children with PKU cannot hydroxylate phenylalanine (Phe) into tyrosine. Even with treatment, Phe levels are still above normal and tyrosine levels below normal. Phe and tyrosine compete for the same limited supply of transporter proteins to cross the blood-brain barrier. Elevations in blood levels of Phe relative to tyrosine thus result in less tyrosine reaching the brain. Because the ratio of Phe to tyrosine in the bloodstream is only modestly increased in PKU children on dietary treatment, the decrease in tyrosine levels in the brain is only modest. Researchers studying the mesocortical dopamine system had found that, unlike most dopamine sites in the brain, which are largely unaffected by modest decreases in avai lable tyrosine, the dopamine system in prefrontal cortex is profoundly affected. The dopamine neurons that project to prefrontal cortex are unusual in that they have a much higher rate of firing and of dopamine turnover than most other dopamine neurons. Those unusual properties of the prefrontally-projecting dopamine neurons make prefrontal cortex acutely sensitive to even a modest reduction in avai lable tyrosine. Indeed, reductions in tyrosine levels too small to affect other dopamine systems in other neural regions, such as the striatum, profoundly reduce prefrontal dopamine levels.

Infants and young children treated early and continuously for PKU show deficits in the cognitive abilities dependent on prefrontal cortex if their phenylalanine levels are not kept below 6 mg/dL; the higher their Phe levels, the worse their performance on the executive function tasks that require prefrontal cortex. Other investigators have now confirmed our findings that when average blood Phe levels of children with PKU are kept between 2-6 mg/dL (120-360 m mol/L), cognitive function seems to be completely normal. Not only do the cognitive deficits appear to be thus preventable, but they appear to be a reversible, as emerging evidence is beginning to indicate. PKU children throughout North America and Europe are now able to lead more productive lives.

We also found that dietary treatment needed to begin even earlier than 10-15 days of age, which had been the norm. The visual system is maturing rapidly during those early weeks and the gross elevation in blood Phe levels cause damage to the visual system evident even 10 years later or more. The presentation of our data at the NIH Consensus Conference on PKU, although not yet published, evidently was sufficiently convincing that on the strength of those findings alone the following recommendation for US national health policy was issued: “Treatment should be initiated as soon as possible, & no later than 7-10 days after birth.”

Diamond, A., Ciaramitaro, V., Donner, E., Djali, S., & Robinson, M. (1994). An animal model of early-treated PKU. Journal of Neuroscience, 14, 3072-3082.

Diamond, A. (1994). Phenylalanine levels of 6-10 mg/dl may not be as benign as once thought. Acta Pædiatrica, 83 (Supplement 407 ), 89-91.

Diamond, A. & Herzberg, C. (1996). Impaired sensitivity to visual contrast in children treated early and continuously for PKU. Brain, 119, 523-538.

Diamond, A. (1996). Evidence for the importance of dopamine for prefrontal cortex functions early in life. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society ( London) Series B, 351, 1483-1494.

Diamond, A., Prevor, M., Callender, G., & Druin, D.P. (1997). Prefrontal cortex cognitive deficits in children treated early and continuously for PKU. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development (Monograph #252), 62 (4), 1-207.

Zagreda, L., Goodman, J., Druin, D.P., McDonald, D., & Diamond, A. (1999). Cognitive deficits in a genetic mouse model of the most common biochemical cause of human mental retardation. Journal of Neuroscience, 19, 6175-6182.

Diamond, A. (2001). A model system for studying the role of dopamine in prefrontal cortex during early development in humans: Early- and continuously-treated PKU. In C. Nelson & M. Luciana (eds.), Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience (p. 433-472). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Reprinted in M.H. Johnson, Y. Munakata, & R. Gilmore (eds.). (2002). Reader in brain development and cognition. London, UK: Blackwell Press.

Amso, D., Gehlbach, L.N., Davidson, M., Oross, S., & Diamond, A. (in prep.) Long-lasting, selective visual deficits from short-term exposure to high neonatal phenylalanine levels in humans.

see also: http://www.psychologymatters.org/diamond.html

3. My work has influenced the way people think about cognitive development. For example, I helped awaken interest in the role of improved inhibitory control in development. Development proceeds both by the acquisition of new knowledge and by the increasing ability to inhibit inappropriate reactions that get in the way of demonstrating what is already known. It is not enough to know the right thing to do, you must do it. It had been widely accepted that it followed like the night the day that if you knew what you should do you would do it. If a child remembered where a reward was hidden, or knew that when sorting items by color like colors go together, then of course the child would search or sort the items accordingly. However, change is difficult, even for adults, and if the reward had been hidden elsewhere before or if the items had been sorted according to a different dimension before, young children sometimes continue to look in the previous hiding place or sort by the previously correct dimension, even when they can tell you the correct response or show it with their eyes. Between knowledge (knowing the correct response) and implementation, another step, long ignored, is often required. When a strong competing response is present, inhibition of that response (as well as activation of the correct response) is required. A related point is that we tend to think of higher-level skills (such as a conceptual understanding of contiguous relations) as maturing later than "lower-level" skills (such as the motor skills required for retrieving stationary, contiguous objects). However, often it is the motor skills that are the limiting factors, and the later to mature, rather than the cognitive skills.

Diamond, A. & Gilbert, J. (1989). Development as progressive inhibitory control of action: Retrieval of a contiguous object. Cognitive Development, 4, 223-249.

Diamond, A. (1990). Developmental time course in human infants and infant monkeys, and the neural bases, of inhibitory control in reaching. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 608, 637-676.

Diamond, A. (1991). Neuropsychological insights into the meaning of object concept development. In S. Carey & R. Gelman (Eds.), The epigenesis of mind: Essays on biology and knowledge (pp. 67-110). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Reprinted in M. H. Johnson (Ed.) (1993), Brain Development and Cognition: A Reader, Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.

Gerstadt, C., Hong, Y., & Diamond, A. (1994). The relationship between cognition and action: Performance of 3½-7 year old children on a Stroop-like day-night test. Cognition, 53, 129-153.

Diamond, A. & Taylor, C. (1996). Development of an aspect of executive control: Development of the abilities to remember what I said and to "Do as I say, not as I do." Developmental Psychobiology, 29, 315-334.

Diamond, A. & Lee, E.-Y. (2000). Inability of 5-month-old infants to retrieve a contiguous object: A failure of conceptual understanding or of control of action? Child Development, 71, 1477-1494.

Diamond, A. (2000). Close interrelation of motor development and cognitive development and of the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex. Child Development, 71, 44-56 (Special issue: New directions for Child Development in the 21st Century.)

Diamond, A., Kirkham, N., & Amso, D. (2002). Conditions under which young children CAN hold two rules in mind and inhibit a prepotent response. Developmental Psychology , 38, 352–362.

Kirkham, N., Cruess, L. & Diamond, A. (2003). Helping children apply their knowledge to their behavior on a dimension-switching task. Developmental Science , 6, 449-467.

Rennie, D., Bull, R. & Diamond, A. (2004). Executive functioning in preschoolers: Reducing the inhibitory demands of the dimensional change card sort task. Developmental Neuropsychology, 26, 423-443.

Diamond, A. & Kirkham, N.Z. (2005). Not quite as grown-up as we like to think: Parallels between cognition in childhood and adulthood. Psychological Science, 16, 291-297.

Diamond, A. (submitted). Developmental progression in learning, and executing from memory, sequential hand movements: Children's performance on Luria's "Flat-Fist-Edge" motor sequence task.

4 . We were able to obtain the first evidence of the relation of COMT gene polymorphism to cognitive performance in children, challenging accepted notions of the role of dopamine in prefrontal cortex, and providing an existence proof that differences in genotype can be related to differences in cognitive performance in normal children. We were also able to achieve a greater level of precision than had been attempted before, even in studies of adults.

The dopamine system in PFC differs from the dopamine system in other brain regions (besides having higher firing rates and dopamine turnover rates, mentioned above), in that PFC contains significantly less dopamine transporter protein, the principal mechanism for clearing released dopamine from extracellular space. This makes PFC more dependent on secondary mechanisms, such as the catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) enzyme, for terminating the action of released DA. Therefore, variations in the gene that codes for the COMT enzyme disproportionately affect PFC.

We found that children homozygous for a polymorphism of the COMT gene that leaves dopamine around longer in PFC showed better executive control, performing better on a task requiring memory, inhibition, and task-switching. The better performance was specific to PFC functions; the children did not perform better on control measures (recognition memory and mental rotation). A level of specificity not attempted before was achieved in that COMT polymorphism was differentially related to performance on tasks linked to the same PFC region by whether or not task cognitive requirements were sensitive to the level of dopamine in PFC. That is, as predicted, better performance was not found on self-ordered pointing, which depends on dorsolateral prefrontal cortex but appears to be insensitive to variations in PFC dopamine levels. (Children with PKU [hypothesized to have lower PFC dopamine levels] and monkeys in whom dopamine has been depleted from PFC are not impaired on self-ordered pointing, though they are impaired on executive control measures.) This set of results challenges accepted notions that since dopamine is important for some PFC-dependent cognitive functions, it is important for all. The differential sensitivity of distinct cognitive abilities to specific neurotransmitters opens up possibilities for targeted pharmacological interventions.

Analyses of genes, such as the COMT gene, that affect neurotransmitter systems, provide a window into the neurochemical modulation of the executive control abilities dependent on PFC.Those abilities are of critical importance. A better understanding of genetic modulation of these cognitive abilities should provide guidance for protecting children against developing, or for mitigating the severity of, deficits in PFC-dependent cognitive functions implicated in so many disorders.

Diamond, A., Briand , L., Fossella , J., & Gehlbach, L. (2004). Genetic and neurochemical modulation of prefrontal cognitive functions in children. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 125-132.

(This article will be featured on the 'In This Issue' page of the January issue of the journal.)

5. We have cut by more than half (from 21 months to 9 months) the age at which infants can demonstrate the ability to deduce abstract rules (such as “Choose the item that does not match (i.e., is different from) the sample”). That ability is critical for diverse aspects of cognitive development. People had previously thought that deduction of abstract rules was beyond the ability of infants so young, but it was only that adults had presented materials to infants in a way that did not enable the infants to demonstrate and use their deductive abilities. By presenting materials slightly differently, infants are able to learn abstract rules. The potential practical implications of this are tremendously exciting, both for very young typically-developing children and for remedial interventions with children with developmental delays.

In the delayed nonmatching to sample (DNMS) task, a sample object is presented that the child displaces to retrieve the tiny reward beneath it. A brief delay ensues, then the sample object is presented to one side and a novel object to the other. The well under the novel object contains a reward; the well under the sample is now empty. Several trials follow, each with a new sample and novel object. Hence, reaching to the novel stimulus is consistently rewarded, whether it is on the right or the left, is taller or shorter, or more or less colorful. Once a child succeeds at the brief training delay, the delay is incremented.

DNMS is a classic task for studying the functions of the medial temporal lobe memory system in rhesus monkeys. Children cannot succeed at the task, even at the 5-sec training delay, until they are almost 2 years old (21 months). One might think (and some suggested) that, since the task is a behavioral assay of the functions of the medial temporal lobe, and since success on it does not appear until late in development, that the medial temporal lobe memory system must be late maturing. The logic resembles that used in the work summarized under #1, but with one important difference. The characteristics of performance and conditions that produced success and failure were closely parallel between infants and monkeys for #1, but not here. On the DNMS task, the problem for infants is in “acquisition,” i.e., understanding what correct performance entails, not retention at long delays (which is the problem for monkeys and adults with medial temporal lobe damage). Robust recognition memory is present well before 21 months. It is another ability required by the DNMS task that matures late.

For several years we systematically investigated hypotheses about what that other ability might be. The critical late-maturing competence required for success on DNMS appears to be the ability to grasp the relation­ between the stimulus and reward when there is no obvious physical connection between them. When there is a physical connection, infants of only 9-12 months easily succeed. For instance, they succeed when the reward is velcroed to the base of the stimulus (attached, though detachable from, the stimulus, and still hidden beneath the stimulus when the stimulus is atop a well). They also succeed when the stimuli and rewards are attached to the same piece of apparatus, even though not directly attached to one another, and neither spatially nor temporally proximal. For example, when jack-in-the-box rewards are used, and the stimuli and jack-in-the-boxes are components of the same large box, infants of 9-12 months succeed, and neither increasing the delay between sample presentation and test nor introducing a delay between when the infant acts on the stimulus and when the reward pops up has any effect (infants still succeed). Indeed, when stimuli and rewards were parts of a single apparatus, even when the stimuli and rewards were several inches apart and the close temporal connection between pulling the stimulus and appearance of the reward was broken, infants succeeded. In the absence of the perception that the stimulus and reward were components of a single thing, even close spatial and temporal proximity was insufficient for infants to succeed at DNMS. For instance, infants failed when each stimulus was placed directly in front of (but clearly separate from, and not connected to) the box containing its associated jack-in-the-box reward, even when the reward appeared immediately upon touching the stimulus.

Physical connectedness appears to be the necessary and sufficient condition. In its presence, neither close spatial or temporal proximity is needed. In its absence, even close spatial and temporal proximity are insufficient for infants in the first year to grasp the rule-based association between stimuli and rewards. Evidently, in the standard DNMS procedure, infants do not understand that the stimulus objects are supposed to indicate where the rewards are located. The stimulus might be thought of as a symbol or marker for where to find the reward. That is an abstract relation, and in DNMS it is also an arbitrary one. Symbolic representation, understanding that one thing (a stimulus) can stand for another (where the reward is located), is one of the crowning achievements of early cognitive development. Most behavioral training with children with developmental delays, or with children with disorders such as autism, has not considered whether symbol and referent are physically connected. It would be wonderful if making such a simple change could enable these children to grasp concepts previously thought to be beyond their ability.

Diamond, A. (1990c). Rate of maturation of the hippocampus and the developmental progression of children's performance on the delayed non-matching to sample and visual paired comparison tasks. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 608, 394-426.

Diamond, A., Towle, C., & Boyer, K. (1994). Young children's performance on a task sensitive to the memory functions of the medial temporal lobe in adults, the delayed nonmatching to sample task, reveals problems that are due to non-memory related task demands. Behavioral Neuroscience, 108, 1-22.

Diamond, A. (1995). Evidence of robust recognition memory early in life even when assessed by reaching behavior. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (Special Issue [Guest Editor, Nora Newcombe]), 59, 419-456.

Diamond, A., Churchland, A., Cruess, L., & Kirkham, N. (1999). Early developments in the ability to understand the relation between stimulus and reward. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1507-1517.

Diamond, A., Lee, E-Y., & Hayden, M. (2003). Early success in using the relation between stimulus and reward to deduce an abstract rule: Perceived physical connectedness is key. Developmental Psychology, 39, 825-847.

Shutts, K., Ross, E., & Hayden, M. & Diamond, A. (in prep.) Grasping that one thing is related to another: Contributions of spatial contiguity, temporal proximity, and physical connection.

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Publications

Diamond, A. (submitted).  All or None Hypothesis: A global-default mode that characterizes the brain and mind. Developmental Psychology.

Shing, Y.L., Lindenberger, U., Diamond, A., Li, S-C., & Davidson, M.C. (under revision), Development of working memory and inhibitory control: Differentiation emerges from early childhood to adolescence. Developmental Science.

Diamond, A. (accepted). When in competition against engrained habits, is conscious representation sufficient or is inhibition of the habit also needed? Developmental Science.

Blair, C. & Diamond, A. (in press, 2008).  Biological processes in prevention and intervention: Promotion of self-regulation and the prevention of early school failure.  Development and Psychopathology. (pdf)

Diamond, A. & Amso, D. (2008).  Contributions of neuroscience to our understanding of cognitive development.  Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 136-141. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A., Barnett, W.S., Thomas, J., & Munro, S. (2007). Preschool program improves cognitive control, Science, 318, 1387-1388. (pdf)

Diamond, A. (2007).  Consequences of variations in genes that affect dopamine in prefrontal cortex.  Cerebral Cortex, 17, 161-170. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (2007). Interrelated and interdependent. Developmental Science, 10, 152-158. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (2006). Bootstrapping conceptual deduction using physical connection: Rethinking frontal cortex . Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10 , 212-218. (abstract) (pdf)

Davidson, M.C., Amso, D., Anderson, L.C., & Diamond, A. (2006). Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4-13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching. Neuropsychologia, 44, 2037 - 2078 (Mar 29; [Epub ahead of print]) (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (2006). The early development of executive functions. In E. Bialystok & F. Craik (eds.), Lifespan Cognition: Mechanisms of Change (pp. 70-95). NY: Oxford University Press. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A., Carlson, S.M., & Beck, D.M. (2005). Preschool children's performance in task switching on the dimensional change card sort task: Separating the dimensions aids the ability to switch. Developmental Neuropsychology, 28, 689-729. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (2005). ADD (ADHD without hyperactivity), a neurobiologically and behaviorally distinct disorder from ADHD (with hyperactivity). Development and Psychopathology, 17, 807-825. (abstract) (pdf)

Prevor, M.B. & Diamond, A. (2005). Color-object interference in young children: A Stroop effect in children 3½-6½ years old. Cognitive Development, 20, 256-278. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. & Kirkham, N.Z. (2005). Not quite as grown-up as we like to think: Parallels between cognition in childhood and adulthood. Psychological Science, 16, 291-297. (abstract) (pdf)

Rennie, D., Bull, R. & Diamond, A. (2004). Executive functioning in preschoolers: Reducing the inhibitory demands of the dimensional change card sort task. Developmental Neuropsychology, 26, 423-443. (abstract) (pdf)

Munakata, Y., Casey, B.J., & Diamond, A. (2004). Developmental cognitive neuroscience: Progress and potential. Trends in Cognitive Science, 8, 122-128. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A., Briand , L., Fossella , J., & Gehlbach, L. (2004). Genetic and neurochemical modulation of prefrontal cognitive functions in children. American Journal of Psychiatry, 161, 125-132. (abstract) (pdf)
     - Highlighted by the journal in its “In this Issue” page.
     - Rated as “Exceptional” by the Faculty of 1000.
     - Ranked No. 2 in the Hidden Jewels Top 10 in Neuroscience        by the Faculty of 1000.

Wilkinson, K.M., Ross , E., & Diamond, A. (2003). Fast mapping of multiple words: Insights into when “the information provided” does and does not equal “the information perceived.” Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24, 739-762. (abstract)

Kirkham , N.Z., Cruess , L. & Diamond, A. (2003). Helping children apply their knowledge to their behavior on a dimension-switching task. Developmental Science , 6, 449-467. (abstract) (pdf)

Kirkham, N.Z. & Diamond, A. (2003). Sorting between theories of perseveration: Performance in conflict tasks requires memory, attention, and inhibition. Developmental Science , 6, 474-476. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A., Lee, E-Y., & Hayden , M. (2003). Early success in using the relation between stimulus and reward to deduce an abstract rule: Perceived physical connectedness is key. Developmental Psychology, 39, 825-847. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A., Kirkham , N.Z., & Amso , D. (2002). Conditions under which young children CAN hold two rules in mind and inhibit a prepotent response. Developmental Psychology , 38, 352–362. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (2002). Normal development of prefrontal cortex from birth to young adulthood: Cognitive functions, anatomy, and biochemistry. In D.T. Stuss & R.T. Knight (ed.s), Principles of frontal lobe function (p. 466-503). London, UK: Oxford University Press. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (2001). Looking closely at infants’ performance, and experimental procedures, in the A-not-B task. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 38-41. (abstract)

Diamond, A. (2001). A model system for studying the role of dopamine in prefrontal cortex during early development in humans. In C. Nelson & M. Luciana (eds.), Handbook of developmental cognitive neuroscience (p. 433-472). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. (abstract) (pdf)
     Reprinted in M.H. Johnson, Y. Munakata, & R. Gilmore (eds.). (2002).
     Reader in brain development and cognition. London, UK: Blackwell Press.

Diamond, A. (2001). Prefrontal cortex development and development of cognitive functions. In Neil J. Smelser and Paul B. Baltes (Editors),  International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (pages 11976-11982). Oxford, UK: Pergamon. 

Diamond, A. & Lee, E.-Y. (2000). Inability of 5-month-old infants to retrieve a contiguous object: A failure of conceptual understanding or of control of action? Child Development, 71, 1477-1494. (abstract)

Diamond, A. (2000). Towards an understanding of the human frontal lobes. Contemporary Psychology, 45, 564-565. (abstract)

Diamond, A. (2000). Close interrelation of motor development and cognitive development and of the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex. Child Development, 71, 44-56 (Special issue: New directions for Child Development in the 21st Century.) (abstract) (pdf)

Johnson, M.H., Aslin, R., Diamond, A., Hood, B., & Spelke, L. (2000). Human brain development: Perception, attention, and memory. Report for the Sackler Institute, commissioned by the McDonnell Foundation.

Diamond, A., Churchland, A., Cruess , L., & Kirkham , N. (1999). Early developments in the ability to understand the relation between stimulus and reward. Developmental Psychology, 35, 1507-1517. (abstract) (pdf)

Zagreda, L., Goodman, J., Druin, D.P., McDonald, D., & Diamond, A. (1999). Cognitive deficits in a genetic mouse model of the most common biochemical cause of human mental retardation. Journal of Neuroscience, 19, 6175-6182. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (1999). Developmental psychology in its social and cultural con text. Society for Research in Child Development Newsletter, 42, 5-8. (abstract)

Diamond, A. (1999). Development of cognitive functions linked to prefrontal cortex. In N.A. Fox, L.A. Leavit, & J.G. Warhol (eds.), The Role of Early Experience in Infant Development. Johnson & Johnson: New Brunswik, NJ.

Diamond, A. (1998). Understanding the A-not-B error: Working memory vs. reinforced response, or active vs. latent trace. Developmental Science, 1, 185-189. (abstract)

Albert, M., Diamond, A., Fitch, H., Neville, H., Rapp, P., and Tallal, P. (1998). Cognitive Development. In F.E. Bloom, S.C. Landis, J.L. Roberts, L.R.Squire, & M.J. Zigmond (ed.s). Fundamental Neuroscience (p. 1313-1338). San Diego: Academic Press.

Diamond, A., Prevor, M., Callender, G., & Druin, D.P. (1997). Prefrontal cortex cognitive deficits in children treated early and continuously for PKU. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development (Monograph #252), 62 (4), 1-207. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (1996). Evidence for the importance of dopamine for prefrontal cortex functions early in life. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London) Series B, 351, 1483-1494. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. & Herzberg, C. (1996). Impaired sensitivity to visual contrast in children treated early and continuously for PKU. Brain, 119, 523-538. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. & Taylor, C. (1996). Development of an aspect of executive control: Development of the abilities to remember what I said and to "Do as I say, not as I do." Developmental Psychobiology, 29, 315-334. (abstract) (pdf)

Strupp, B. & Diamond, A. (1996). Assessing cognitive function in animal models of mental retardation. Mental Retardation Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews, 2, 216-226.

Diamond, A. (1995). Evidence of robust recognition memory early in life even when assessed by reaching behavior. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (Special Issue [Guest Editor, Nora Newcombe]), 59, 419-456. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (1994). Phenylalanine levels of 6-10 mg/dl may not be as benign as once thought. Acta Pædiatrica, 83 (Supplement 407), 89-91.

Diamond, A., Ciaramitaro, V., Donner, E., Djali , S., & Robinson, M. (1994). An animal model of early-treated PKU. Journal of Neuroscience, 14, 3072-3082. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A., Cruttenden, L., & Neiderman, D. (1994). A-not-B with multiple wells: I. Why multiple wells are sometimes easier than two wells. II. Memory or memory + inhibition? Developmental Psychology, 30, 192-205. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A., Towle, C., & Boyer, K. (1994). Young children's performance on a task sensitive to the memory functions of the medial temporal lobe in adults, the delayed nonmatching to sample task, reveals problems that are due to non-memory related task demands. Behavioral Neuroscience, 108, 1-22. (abstract) (pdf)

Gerstadt, C., Hong, Y., & Diamond, A. (1994). The relationship between cognition and action: Performance of 3½-7 year old children on a Stroop-like day-night test. Cognition, 53, 129-153. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A., Werker, J., & Lalonde, C. (1993). Toward understanding commonalities in the development of object search, detour navigation, categorization, and speech perception. In G. Dawson & K. Fischer (Eds.), Human Behavior and the Developing Brain (p. 380-426). Guilford Press: NY. (abstract)

Diamond, A. (1992). Recognition memory assessed by looking versus reaching: Infants' performance on the visual paired comparison and delayed non-matching to sample tasks. Technical Report IRCS-92-11, University of Pennsylvania, Institute for Research in Cognitive Science.

Diamond, A. (1991a). Frontal lobe involvement in cognitive changes during the first year of life. In K. R. Gibson & A. C. Petersen (Eds.), Brain maturation and cognitive development: Comparative and cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 127-180). NY: Aldine de Gruyter. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (1991b). Neuropsychological insights into the meaning of object concept development. In S. Carey & R. Gelman (Eds.), The epigenesis of mind: Essays on biology and knowledge (pp. 67-110). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. (abstract) (pdf)
        Reprinted in M. H. Johnson (Ed.) (1993), Brain Development and
        Cognition: A Reader, Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.

Diamond, A. (1991c). Some guidelines for the study of brain-behavior relationships during development. In H. Levin, H. Eisenberg, & A. Benton (Eds.), Frontal lobe function and dysfunction (pp. 189-211). NY: Oxford U. Press. (abstract)

Diamond, A. (1990a) (Ed.), The development and neural bases of higher cognitive functions. NY: New York Academy of Sciences. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (1990b). The development and neural bases of memory functions, as indexed by the A-not-B and delayed response tasks, in human infants and infant monkeys. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 608, 267-317. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (1990c). Rate of maturation of the hippocampus and the developmental progression of children's performance on the delayed non-matching to sample and visual paired comparison tasks. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 608, 394-426. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (1990d). Developmental time course in human infants and infant monkeys, and the neural bases, of inhibitory control in reaching. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 608, 637-676. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. & Doar, B. (1989). The performance of human infants on a measure of frontal cortex function, the delayed response task. Developmental Psychobiology, 22, 271-294. (abstract)

Diamond, A. & Gilbert, J. (1989). Development as progressive inhibitory control of action: Retrieval of a contiguous object. Cognitive Development, 4, 223-249. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. & Goldman-Rakic, P. S. (1989). Comparison of human infants and rhesus monkeys on Piaget's A-not-B task: Evidence for dependence on dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Experimental Brain Research, 74, 24-40. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A., Zola-Morgan, S., & Squire, L. R. (1989). Successful performance by monkeys with lesions of the hippocampal formation on A-not-B and object retrieval, two tasks that mark developmental changes in human infants. Behavioral Neuroscience, 103, 526-537. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (1988a). Differences between adult and infant cognition: Is the crucial variable presence or absence of language? In L. Weiskrantz (Ed.), Thought without language (p. 337-370). Oxford U. Press: Oxford. (abstract) (pdf)

Diamond, A. (1988b). The abilities and neural mechanisms underlying A-not-B performance. Child Development, 59, 523-527. (abstract)

Diamond, A. (1985). The development of the ability to use recall to guide action, as indicated by infants' performance on A-not-B. Child Development, 56, 868-883. (abstract) (pdf)

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Education and Training

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Personal

     Dancing

I love to be active and outdoors in nature with others. Love to hike, play tennis, and canoe.

Most of all I love to dance -- any kind of dancing as long as you get to interact with your partner -- swing dance, waltz, contradancing, tango, hambo, vintage, zwiefacher, and more.

Was a member of a contradance troupe that toured the Soviet Union in the Spring following the fall of the Berlin wall. Here is a picture of me dancing on the Arabat, a main street in Moscow.

Our band set up a little platform and people gathered around to see what we might be doing. Little did they know that each of us would invite one of them to dance with us as our partners. What a wonderful way to meet people! We went on to Odessa, Leningrad (not yet re-named St. Petersburg), and Riga. The Soviets allowed us only 36 hours in Riga, but we made the most of them.

 

[More photos to come!]

 

Had such a good time, I organized and led another group of 40 dancers

and a band of terrific musicians (BLT: Peter Barnes, Mary Lea, and Bill Tomczak) to tour Czechoslovakia (České Budějovice in southern Bohemia, Zlin in the Moravian-Silesian Beskids, & Prague) two years later (June, 1992). Here they are clowning with caller, Larry Edelman, on mandolin.

 

some photos of those we met along the way:

 

Instead of staying in hotels, we stayed with local families and made close friends in southern Bohemia (České Budĕjovice), Moravia (Zlin), and Prague.

Here, Adele and Mary Lea are pictured with the family they stayed with in Zlin.

Of course, both the USSR and Czechoslovakia ceased to exist very soon after I visited, but I think it is safe to have me visit as a scholar or scientist. It is only as a dancer that my visits appear to coincide with regime change.

I got to bring together my academic and dance interests when I hosted a meeting on the “The Development and Neural Basis of Higher Cognitive Functions” and arranged for another incredibly wonderful band (Wild Asparagus: Becky Tracy, Stuart Kenney, George Marshall, Ann Percival, & David Cantien) to play for an evening of dance at the meeting.

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     Family pictures

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Brain Development and Learning Conference

     For more information about the Brain Development and Learning Conference, visit the website:
     http://www.interprofessional.ubc.ca/bdl.html

     Conference Feedback

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Current Grant Support

NIH R01 #DA19685: “Development of Cognitive Functions Linked to Frontal Lobe”
PI: Adele Diamond (25% effort)
Project period: 9/10/2004 - 3/01/2010 (continuously funded since 1986)
Total direct costs: $1,250,000 US

     The focus throughout all periods of this award has been to explore the cognitive requirements of tasks thought to depend on prefrontal cortex. This award forms the bedrock for Dr. Diamond’s larger endeavor to systematically investigate and dissect executive control functions, studying their development, neural bases, genetic and neurochemical modulation, and involvement in brain disorders -- from infancy through old age.
     The comprehensive and careful task manipulations here should yield important new information about the conditions under which children and adults of different ages succeed and fail at different types of executive functions. A notable strength is the parsing of inhibitory control into subtypes (such as inhibition at the level of attention and inhibition at the level of action; inhibition in the context of task-switching and inhibition in steady-state.)

U.S. Dept. of Education / Institute of Education Sciences (IES) # R305B070240:
“Evaluating the Efficacy of Preschool Curricula in Improving Executive Functions and Self-Regulation”
PI: Adele Diamond (10% effort)
7/01/07 - 6/30/12
Total direct costs: $2,887,292 US

     with co-funding from:

Spencer Foundation: “Can Self-Regulation be Taught to Preschoolers? If so, does it help?”
PI: Adele Diamond (10% effort)
Project period: 11/01/06-10/31/10
Total direct costs: $410,396 US

     Building on the ground-breaking work on the early development of executive functions and self-regulation from developmental cognitive neuroscience labs, we are using those research tools to investigate pre- and post-intervention levels of self-regulation and executive function and tracking the relation of those to academic achievement and behavior problems over time in at-risk children enrolled in evidence-based preschool programs with varying degrees and types of training in self-regulation and executive functions.
     What produces the best outcomes: Preschool teaching practices that emphasize academic skills or that emphasize that plus executive function (EF)? Can EF training be effective as a module added onto the curriculum or does it need to be interwoven throughout daily activities? Which interventions are most beneficial for which aspects of EF and academic performance? Are there longterm benefits to training preschoolers in how to exercise EF for academic performance and/or for averting behavioral, psychological, and/or learning problems? Objective, proven, neurocognitive pre- and post-intervention EF measures will be used to examine the effect of different preschool programs on academic outcomes in literacy and math. It includes roughly 2,000 children in 2 States (NM & MA) and involves randomized field trial with 4 levels of EF training, emphasizes painstakingly careful data collection and analysis, and includes state-of-the-art academic measures and procedures for tracing special education placement. The innovations being studied are evidence-based, easy to implement in under-funded classrooms, and readily transferable across cultures.

NIH R01 # MH071893: "Autism and the Development of Relational Awareness"
PI: Adele Diamond (25% effort)
co-PI: Rebecca Landa at KKI
Project period: 1/01/2007 - 12/31/2012
Total direct costs: $2,104,016 US

     This project investigates the hypothesis that some young children with autism may need to see a physical connection to help them grasp an abstract conceptual connection. That is, preschool children with autism, even if mildly developmentally delayed, may well be able to learn abstract rules, but the way materials have been presented to them has not enabled them to demonstrate and use that ability. They can grasp relations between things (i.e., the conceptual connection between items), I hypothesize, if those things are physical connected.

NIH R01 #HD044796: "Neurocognitive Development in Children Living in Poverty"
PI: Linda Mayes, M.D., Yale Univ. Med. Sch.
co-PI: Adele Diamond (5% effort)
Project period: 2/01/05 - 1/31/10
Total direct costs: $2,350,000 US

     While many studies have shown an association between economic deprivation and impaired cognitive development in childhood, no studies have explored the impact of economic and environmental disadvantage on component neurocognitive capacities within executive control functions. We propose that one mechanism for the impact of poverty on cognitive development may be through delayed or impaired executive control functions (e.g., working memory & selective attention, more specifically through an impairment in inhibitory executive control functions), and we will investigate this bringing together five disciplines—behavioral neuroscience, epidemiology, child development, neuropsychology, and economics.

UBC Dept. of Psychiatry: “Children at Elevated Risk for Developing Depression during Adolescence (Children of Mothers with Bipolar 1 Disorder): Might Impaired Executive Functions Precede and Predict the Onset of Depression?”
PIs: Adele Diamond (5% effort) + Jane Garland & Allan Young
Project period: 06/01/06 - 05/31/08
Total direct costs: $ 172,000 CAN

     Children of mothers with confirmed diagnoses of bipolar I depression will receive extensive evaluations yearly from 7 through 17 years of age, if continued funding can be obtained.

Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) Award: “Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory”
PI: Adele Diamond (no % effort)
9/01/04 - 8/31/08 Total direct costs with matching funds: $500,220 CAN

     For setting up the PI’s laboratory at UBC.

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Teaching

In Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia:

• Undergraduate Course: The Lifespan Social, Emotional, and Cognitive Development of the Person in its Social, Cultural, and Biological Context
  • Course Feedback

In other departments, University of British Columbia:

• Annual lecture in Neuroscience Graduate Seminar (Neuroscience 501: Systems Neuroscience)
• Biennial lecture in Faculty of Education Graduate Courses on Theories of Cognitive Abilities or Assessment of Young Children
• Guest lecture in Cognitive Systems undergraduate course (Cogs 401)
• Invited lecture on developmental cognitive neuroscience, at the request of the students, for 4th year Biomedical students at UBC

In the Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT):

• Graduate Seminar: Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology

In Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania:

• Developmental Psychology
• Developmental Psychology: The Social and Emotional Growth of the Person
• Undergraduate Seminar: Developmental Psychology throughout the Life Cycle
• Graduate Proseminar: Cognitive Development
• Graduate Proseminar: Socio-Emotional Development
• Graduate Proseminar: Cognitive Neuroscience
• Graduate Seminar: Development and Neural Bases of Higher Cognitive Functions
• Graduate Seminar: Systems Neuroscience (co-taught with other Neuroscience faculty)

In Department of Psychology, Washington University:

• Developmental Psychology: The Social and Emotional Growth of the Person
• Developmental Psychology throughout the Life Cycle
• Research Methods in Experimental Psychology
• Seminar: Cognitive Development and its Relation to Maturation of the Brain (co-taught with Michael Posner in 1987)

In Department of Psychology and Social Relations, Harvard University:

• Cog. Dev. in the Second Half of the First Year of Life: The Object Retrieval Experiment
• Directed Reading and Research: Socioemotional Development during Infancy
• Head Teaching Fellow, Psychology of the Human Life Cycle (Prof. George Goethals)
• Teaching Fellow, Research Methods in Social Psychology
  Certified to teach secondary school social studies

Certified to teach secondary school social studies

• Student teacher, Nether Providence High School, Wallingford, PA 1974-75

Graduate Students Supervised and/or Co-Supervised

at UBC:

• Adjunct Graduate Advisor, Ph.D. student, Michelle Kozey (2005 -
• Member, Dissertation Committee, Heike Dumke, Ph.D. Candidate in Neuroscience (2004 - 2005)
• Member, Ph.D. Committee, Jonathan Epp (2006 -
• Member, Master’s Committee, Kamyar Keramatian (2006 -
• Member, Master’s Committee, Orsolya Magyar (2005 -
• Promoted the work of neuroscience PhD student, Andy Shih (advisor: Tim Murphy) and tried to spearhead multi-site clinical trials based on the implications of Andy’s work for minimizing the consequences of perinatal hypoxia/ischemia for the infant’s brain:
  • Organized & cooked a lunch at BC Children’s Hospital for a discussion between Andy, Mary Connolly (Head, Child Neurology), Philippe Chessex ( Head, Div. of Neonatology), & David Holtzman (Head, Neurology, Washington University Medical School)
  • Arranged for Andy to present at the Combined Perinatal Rounds at BC Children’s & Women’s

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Past Trainees

Many who've worked with me have gone on to careers in science & education. Examples:

Undergraduate Independent Studies & Honor Theses Advised

All have been full-year projects except Levy and Wusinich (1992), Lisa Loewinger (1993-94), Lyngine Calizo (1994-95), Erin Clifford (1998), and Cynda Ashton (2007) who worked on their projects for only one semester.

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Service

Service to the University

Membership on committees

Member-at-Large, Executive Committee, UBC Faculty Association (2008-2010)

Member. Membership Committee, Green College (2007- )

Member, the CRC Internal Review Committee of UBC (2006 - Member, Search Committee for Leadership Chair in Child Psychiatry (2006)

Member, Search Committee for an Ass’t /Assoc. Professor, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (2006)

Member, Research Administration Committee, Div. of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Dept. of Psychiatry (2005- )

Member, Canada Research Chair Tier II Review Committee, Faculty of Medicine, UBC (2005)

Member, Faculty Search Committee, Brain Research Centre, for a CRC Professor in Neuroimaging (2004 - 2005)

Other service

Organizer, International Biennial Conference Series “Brain Development & Learning” & inaugural meeting devoted “Plasticity and Interventions” (2005- ); this is a service to the larger community of parents, policymakers, educators, physicians, psychologists, and allied health professions

Organizer, yearly Colloquium Series for the Institute of Mental Health (2006 - )

Co-Organizer, Mental Health and Neurobiology Cluster, Child & Family Research Institute, Get-Acquainted Day (2006)

Co-Organizer of the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies Workshop on “Executive and Prefrontal Functions: Exploring Supervision and Volition in the Brain” (2005-2006)

Wrote research grant for Dr. Margaret Weiss (Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, UBC & BC Children’s) that got funded on ” Do children with ADHD, who respond well to amphetamine medication but not to methylphenidate, have allelic variants of the SNAP 25 gene?”

Internal Reviewer, CIHR operating grant application by Linda Siegel (in Education Faculty): “Long-Term Cognitive, Educational, Neuropsychological, and Behavioural Outcomes for Survivors of Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Treated with Chemotherapy" (2007)

Internal Reviewer, applications from Psychiatry faculty for MSFHR Career

Investigator award: Mark Lau: “Using Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy to reduce ‘cognitive reactivity’ – A psychological risk factor of depressive relapse" and Jeremy Seamans: “Dopamine modulation of prefrontal cortex network dynamics” (2006)

Host of Brain Research Centre neuroscience colloquium speakers
Press Conference Speaker at BCRICWH together with PM Paul Martin concerning the CRC Program

Interviewer for BCRICWH, Candidates for the SFU Leadership Chair in MEG (2005)

Judge, Student Presentations at the Psychiatry Department’s Annual Research Day (April, 2005)

Have taken under my wing a UBC first-year student from Zimbabwe, Tinashe Chatora. Insisted that he stay at our house when he first arrived in Vancouver & the dorms weren’t open yet. Have remained in close touch with him and plan to continue to do so throughout his 4 years at UBC. (2007- )

Service to the Field and to the Community

Memberships in scholarly societies

Memberships on scholarly committees

• Member, Local organizing committee for Canadian Association for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Vancouver (2008 - 2009)
• Member, National Advisory Board, Continuum Academy (A Minnesota State Public Charter School) (2008 - present)
• Member, Research Management Committee of the Down Syndrome Research Foundation (2007 - present)
• Member, International Research Network on Imagination and Education (2006 - )
• Member, Leadership Council on Awareness and Concentration in Learning, for the Garrison Institute (2006 - )
• Member, Board of Governors of the International Neuropsychological Society (INS) (2005-2008)
• Nominator, MacArthur Fellows Program (2004 - )
• Elected to the Fellows Committee of Division 7 (Developmental Psychology) of the American Psychological Association (2004 - 2008)
• Member, Executive Governing Board, Cognitive Development Society (2003-2010)
• Member, Selection Committee for the Eleanor Maccoby Book Award (2005)
• Program Advisor, PBS series proposal on the emotional lives of girls (2004 - 2005)
• Member, Selection Committee for winner of the McGuigan Prize of APA (2004)
• Member, External Advisory Committee, Program Project Grant on "Development of Arousal & Attention Regulation,” PI: Judith Gardner, NYS Institute for Basic Research in Developmental Disabilities
• Member, Dissertation Examining Committee, Stephan Huijbregts, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, NL, 2002
• Member, Senior Advisory Bd., National Center for Developmental Science in the Public Interest, 2001-present
• Member, ‘Faculty of 1000’, 2001- present
• Its principal aim is to organize and evaluate the vast life sciences literature. In the Faculty of 1000 the entire field of biology is divided into 17 Faculties. I am in the Cognitive Neuroscience section headed by Richard Morris and Leslie Ungerleider, which is within the Neuroscience Faculty headed by Martin Raff, Chuck Stevens, Bill Newsome, and Carla Shatz.
• Member, College of Reviewers for the Canada Research Chairs program (a tri-granting-council program of the Government of Canada), 2001 - present
• Member of the National Scientific Advisory Committee, Program Project Grant on "Somatic Cell Genetic Studies of Down Syndrome," Denver University & Univ. of Colorado, 1997-present.
• Member of the External Advisory Committee, Learning Disabilities Research Center, Kennedy Krieger Institute, Johns Hopkins University, 1995-present.
• Member, NSF Grant Advisory Panel for Human Cognition and Perception, 2000.
• Member, Panel on "Perception, Attention, and Memory" for the McDonnell Foundation, Sackler
• Foundation Initiative on Centers on Human Brain Development, 1998-2000.
• Member of NIH Site Visit Teams, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2003, 2004.
• Member of the international scientific committee that planned the Congress in Geneva on "The Growing Mind: Interdisciplinary Approaches" on the centennial of Piaget's birth in 1996.
• Member of NIH Study Section, Human Development & Aging-1 (AHR), 1991

Editorships

• Associate Editor, Developmental Science , 2001-
• Associate Editor, Developmental Psychology, 2004-2010
• Editor, special issue of Developmental Psychology on the Interplay of Biology and Environment broadly defined, targeting papers with the potential to change or challenge how developmental psychologists think. Topics include: How Experience affects Mind, Brain, and Gene Expression throughout Development; Genetic Mediation of Environmental Effects on Mind and Body during Development; Interrelations between Physical Health and Mental Health during Development; How Emotions Affect Brain Function (and hence Cognition and Perception) during Development (submissions due Sept., 2007)

Member of Editorial Boards: