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Mark Wallace named director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute
Mark Wallace, Ph.D., associate professor of hearing and speech sciences and psychology, has been named director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute.
Wallace succeeds Elaine Sanders-Bush, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and psychiatry and director of the Neuroscience Graduate Program at Vanderbilt Medical Center.
The Brain Institute was established in 2001 to foster and facilitate neuroscience research, training and public outreach at Vanderbilt.
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June 25, 2008 |
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Studies track pressure’s role in optic nerve degeneration
Researchers at Vanderbilt Medical Center have discovered that glaucoma, which slowly robs a person of eyesight, might actually begin with damage in the brain.
With the aid of recent grants totaling $2.2 million, David Calkins, Ph.D., and colleagues are studying how pressure in the eye translates to optic nerve degeneration and loss of communication in the brain.
Calkins hopes the most recent discovery will serve as a helpful tool for tracking the disease and testing future therapies.
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June 25, 2008 |
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Macular Degeneration, Age-Related Vision Disorder Linked to Cell’s ‘Power Plant’
The study is the first to examine the mitochondrial genome for changes associated with AMD, the leading cause of blindness in Caucasians over age 50.
“Most people don’t realize that we have two genomes,” said lead author Jeff Canter, M.D., M.P.H., an investigator in the Center for Human Genetics Research. “We have the nuclear genome – the “human genome” – that makes the cover of all the magazines, and then we also have this tiny genome in mitochondria in every cell.”
Canter teamed with Jonathan Haines, Ph.D., and Paul Sternberg, M.D., experts in AMD genetics and treatment, to examine whether a particular variation in the mitochondrial genome is associated with the disease. The genetic change occurs in about 10 percent of Caucasians, referred to as mitochondrial haplogroup T.
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May 15, 2008 |
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VU Web Cast: The Gift of Site
The gift of sight, juggling for all it’s worth and do you still want to see Vanderbilt’s boys of summer? Watch the latest VU WebCast with a clip featuring VVRC investigator Jeff Sonsino regarding macular degenertion.
Webcast Link
April 8, 2008 |
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Eye Institute’s Sternberg keeps focus on the future
As Paul Sternberg Jr., M.D., strolls through the 50,000 square foot building that will soon house the Vanderbilt Eye Institute, he examines everything thoroughly. He can't help it, it's who he is. Focused.
He likens the daily walk-through to building a home, and his involvement can be seen and felt in every part of the new facility, from the high-tech optical equipment to the tile and upholstery.
It was all in the plan. Long before Sternberg ever came to Vanderbilt as chair of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, his destination was certain. The route was the unknown.
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March 13, 2008 |
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Congratulations to Min-Suk Kang and Yetta Wong who are winners of the 2008 Elsevier Vision Research Travel Award
The Elsevier Vision Research Travel Award is an extremely competitive award, which consists of a $500 prize to assist with expenses for the 2008 Annual VSS Meeting. The Elsevier Vision Research Travel Award had nearly 300 applicants expressing interest this year. The Awards Committee makes recommendations based on a wide range of factors, including the applicant's statement, letters of recommendation, scientific merit of the research, as well as the potential impact of the work. The award will be presented to both Min-Suk and Yetta at the Keynote Address, Saturday, May 10th at 7 pm. Congratulations!
Travel Award Winners 2008
February 20, 2008 |
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Congratulations to Tom James the 2008 winner of the Randolph Blake Early Career Award
Tom James was a postdoctoral fellow with Isabel Gauthier from 2001-2004. He is currently on the faculty at Indiana University as an assistant professor. Tom’s research has used a combination of functional brain imaging and behavioral experiments to tackle a number of basic problems in visual cognition, such as visual priming, multimodal and semantic interactions on vision, and classical issues of viewpoint selectivity. Tom has published 22 peer-reviewed articles, most of them first-authored, in top journals such as Neuron, Psychological Science, and Neuropsychologia.
The program in Psychological Sciences established this award to recognize exemplary alumni of our program in the early stages of their career. The nominee must have been an honors student, a graduate student, or a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology or the Department of Psychology and Human Development. Nominees must be within the first five years of appointment in their first faculty position. The winner was decided by a committee of faculty from both departments.
February 15, 2008 |
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Cover Art of Journal of Neurophysiology from Schall Lab
Congratulations to the Schall lab. The cover art of the February 2008 issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology originated from the Schall lab.
Cover Caption: Error-related local field potentials recorded from anterior cingulate cortex of macaque monkeys performing a saccade stop signal task. Circles mark the peak negativity, and triangles mark the peak positivity following the saccade on individual trials. This signal corresponds to the error-related negativity recorded from humans. For details see Emeric EE, Brown JW, Leslie MW, Pouget P, Stuphorn V, and Schall JD. Performance Monitoring Local Field Potentials in the Medial Frontal Cortex of Primates: Anterior Cingulate Cortex. J Neurophysiol 99: 759-772, 2008. First published December 12, 2007; doi:10.1152/jn.00896.2006.
Journal of Neurophysiology Website
Cover Art
February 15, 2008 |
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Congratulations to Hilda Fehd on winning the Lisa M. Quesenberry Award
Graduate student Hilda Fehd in Adriane Seiffert's lab has won the Lisa M. Quesenberry Foundation Award, At The Community Foundation of Louisville. The Lisa M. Quesenberry Foundation was established by Irvin and Mary Ann Quesenberry and Kathryn Quesenberry to memorialize the accomplishments of their daughter and sister, Lisa M. Quesenberry. It is designed to provide research or study awards to motivated graduate students. Preferably, the awards will be made to female graduate students who are studying the field of psychology and who have overcome significant personal challenges to pursue their education.
February 6, 2008 |
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Yin and Yang of color maps in the brain
Congratulations to Anna Roe and Haidong Lu. The journal Cerebral Cortex featured cover art from their article titled Functional Organization of Color Domains in V1 and V2 of Macaque Monkey Revealed by Optical Imaging.
Cover Description: Macaque monkey visual cortex (areas V1 and V2). Yin (right portion): optical image of V1 & V2 activation while monkey is viewing a color stimulus. Yang (left portion): cytochrome-oxidase (CO) stained brain slice of the imaged region. As shown in Lu and Roe 2008, color-activations in V1 (smaller patches) align with CO blobs in V1, while color-activations in V2 (larger patches) align with CO thin stripes in V2.
Cover PDF • Cerebral Cortex Link
January 30, 2008 |
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Vanderbilt psychologist wins prestigious National Academy of Sciences award
Vanderbilt psychologist Isabel Gauthier has been named a 2008 Troland Research Award winner by the National Academy of Sciences.
The annual Troland Research Awards include a prize of $50,000 each and are given to two researchers to recognize unusual achievement and to further their research within the broad spectrum of experimental psychology.
Full Story
January 24, 2008 |
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