Cognitive neuroscience prog. grows with new home, profs

First-year School of Arts and Sciences graduate student Stacey Schaefer delivered a presentation Monday on the connection between the brain and emotions to a panel of wide-eyed University researchers whose fields spanned neurology, psychology and biostatistics. It was at the new and much-lauded Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, where Schaefer and other young cognitive neuroscientists joined faculty from SAS and the Medical School to study a rapidly developing field -- the connection between thoughts and the brain. The CCN -- now solidified with its own space, a World Wide Web site and three recently hired professors -- has been operating out of a facility on 38th and Walnut streets for the past few months, after Provost Robert Barchi worked last semester to bring the center to fruition. "People would have sold their souls to the devil to be able to use these [resources]," said CCN Director Martha Farah, a Psychology professor who noted that cognitive neuroscience, which did not exist when she was a graduate student in the late 1970s and early 1980s, has made tremendous strides only in the last 10 years. Farah said that young cognitive neuroscientists like Schaefer are instrumental in getting "a scientific handle" on understanding the mind. Indeed, technologies available at the center, like functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, attracted Schaefer and others to Penn's graduate school and eventually the room at 3810 Walnut where she received feedback from "the masters" of the nearly 18-year-old discipline. According to CCN researchers, the center utilizes the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania to find potential subjects, scanning admit reports of patients who have suffered strokes or other cerebral lesions to see what can be learned from their profiles. With the opening of the center, the University hired Neurology Professor Anjan Chatterjee, Biostatistics and Epidemiology Professor Jonathan Raz and Psychology Professor Sharon Thompson-Schill to start at Penn this fall. The University will search for two more appointments in Cognitive Neuroscience. Currently, about five faculty members and four research associates take part in the center's research. On Monday, Farah said that the CCN is gradually coming together, having launched its Web site, http://www.upenn.edu/ccn, last Friday. The center is still in the process of acquiring furniture and developing a final budget, she added. The CCN, part of President Judith Rodin's Agenda for Excellence, formed following a report from the planning committee Barchi chaired last fall. "Understanding normal brain mechanisms involved in memory, learning, consciousness and cognition will have a profound effect on how we view ourselves as individuals and as a society," Barchi said of the center's potential impact. Barchi -- formerly the chair of the Medical School's Neuroscience and Neurosurgery Department -- added that ancient Greek philosophers were the first to pose questions about these fundamental processes that are not yet completely understood. "It is truly exciting to think that answers may now be at hand," he said. Farah stressed that her next step in bolstering the center will be to incorporate undergraduate education, specifically through the Biological Basis of Behavior major. Thompson-Schill, currently team-teaching a graduate level cognitive neuroscience course with Farah, will lead an undergraduate human neuropsychology course next semester. Human Neuropsychology, crosslisted with BBB and Psychology, was last taught seven years ago when the University did not offer it as Psychology, according to Thompson-Schill. Thompson-Schill, who conducted three years of postdoctoral work at Penn prior to joining the Psychology Department this fall, praised the University's commitment to cognitive neuroscience in "calling it a center and giving us space and resources." Research associate and eighth-year medical and doctoral student Geoff Aguirre echoed Thompson-Schill's enthusiasm. "It's like a writer's salon," Aguirre noted, saying the center has been effective in consolidating cognitive neuroscience on campus. "I'm trying to stay here for my neurology residency," he added.

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