Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience Lab

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field devoted to understanding how children’s minds change as they grow up, interrelations between that & how the brain is changing, and environmental and biological influences on that.

Our lab specializes in studying a region of the brain known as prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the cognitive abilities that depend on it, especially in young children.

Those abilities are often called executive functions and consist of cognitive control functions such as cognitive flexibility, inhibition (attentional control, self-control), working memory, reasoning, and problem-solving.

We study ……

their development

neural bases of (neuroanatomical and neurochemical)

genetic influences on them

& environmental influences on them.

To study their development,
we have developed neurocognitive games that can be used even with infants, & where the same measures can be used with preschoolers through octogenarians

To study their neural bases and modulation by genes and neurochemistry,
we use functional neuroimaging (fMRI) & molecular genetic techniques

To study their modulation by the environment,
we look at detrimental factors such as poverty or exposure to teratogens, and
we look at facilitative factors such as bilingualism, social supports, or school programs

Click Here		One line of our work has led to worldwide changes in the medical guidelines for the treatment of a genetic disorder (PKU) that improved many children’s lives. see: http://www.psychologymatters.org/diamond.html

Click Here		In a recent evaluation of the Tools of the Mind preschool curriculum with at-risk 5-year-olds, we found that exposure to that curriculum accounted for more variance in executive functions (EF) than did age or gender. The more demanding the EF task, the greater the effect of curriculum, and the more highly the task correlated with academic performance.

Click Here		In 2004, we reported evidence of the relation between a genetic polymorphism and EF performance in children that challenged accepted notions of the role of dopamine in prefrontal cortex.

Click Here		In 2002, we showed we could halve the age at which infants can demonstrate the ability to deduce abstract rules. Our pilot work indicates that this also works with children with autism. The implication is that children with autism may be able to grasp abstract concepts long thought beyond their ability; the information just needs to be presented to them in a way they can understand.