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Editor’s Note: Guest post by NEWest Leader, Livia Merrill Livia Merrill is a recent graduate from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA, where she has received both her B.S. and M.S. in Neuroscience. Her research of 4 years under Dr. Fiona Inglis, PhD , consisted of dendritic morphological changes in the prefrontal cortex of non-human primates after the administration of PCP. Having psychomimetic effects, this model was utilized to contribute to the study of schizophrenia and to provide for more effective anti-psychotics. Her current pursuit is under Dr. Stacy Drury, PhD to examine cortisol levels of pregnant mothers in some of the underprivileged neighborhoods of New Orleans and the epigenetic effects on their offspring. Livia’s future plans consist of research behind deviant behavior and rehabilitating subjects. Ideally, she hopes to contribute to change in the criminal justice system, where punishment can transition to rehabilitation, by demonstrating the negative effects of adver...

We’ve all been there. It’s exam week of your junior year of college with two papers due the day after a final. You’re a new faculty member with a semester of lectures to prepare and a lab to get started. You’re a tax accountant and it’s early April. There is simply too much to do and not enough hours in the day to get it all done while sleeping enough to keep your brain working like you need it to. In that situation, where do you stand on cognitive enhancement drugs? Most of us wouldn’t hesitate to grab a cup of coffee but what about a caffeine pill, or a friend’s Adderall? Many discussions about cognitive enhancement eventually come down to this question: where do we draw the line? Currently most of the cognitive enhancers that create unease for ethicists and the general public alike are prescription drugs that were originally meant to treat conditions recognized as out of the realm of “normal” such as diseases or deficits. Therefore, a key step in deciding where we should stand on th...

By Elaine F. Walker, Ph.D. & Arthur T. Ryan, M.A. Elaine Walker is a Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience in the Department of Psychology at Emory University and is the Director of the Development and Mental Health Research Program, which is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health . Her research is focused on child and adolescent development and the brain changes that are associated with adolescence. She is also a member of the AJOB Neuroscience editorial board. The pace of advances in biomedical research has accelerated in conjunction with new technologies for studying cellular processes. While this progress holds promise for relieving human suffering from a range of illnesses, it also poses significant and thorny questions about the ownership of new knowledge. In June of 2013, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling on the Association for Molecular Pathology v Myriad Genetics, Inc. ; all justices agreed that naturally occurring DNA sequences cannot be ...

On May 7 th the Emory University Graduate Students in Psychology and Neuroscience (GSPN) hosted a colloquium talk given by Vijay Mittal , assistant Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In the talk, titled “Translational Clinical Science in the Psychosis Prodrome: From Biomarkers to Early Identification and Intervention,” Dr. Mittal, who received his Ph.D. from Emory, discussed some of his research on the prodrome for schizophrenia. 1 Dr. Vijay Mittal The prodrome for schizophrenia is a collection of neurological and psychological symptoms that can indicate risk for developing schizophrenia (as has been discussed previously on this blog) prior to the development of clinically relevant symptoms. Research on the prodrome is gaining much attention and funding because it could lead to a better understanding of how schizophrenia develops and better ways to intervene prior to its onset. Mittal began his talk with a background on the schizoph...

Imagine opening your email on your computer not by typing a number code, a password, or even by scanning a finger, but instead by simply thinking of a password. Physical keys and garage door openers could also become artifacts of the past once they are replaced with what could be referred to as pass-thoughts . Just last year, researchers at UC Berkley used EEG signals emitted from subjects as biomarker identifiers to allow access to a computer. The entire system – the headset, the Bluetooth device, and the computer – had an error rate of less than 1%. 1 While wearing EEG headsets to open our devices may seem futuristic, this type of scenario could become more prevalent in the future due to advances in physiological computing (PC). Physiological computing is a unique form of human computer interactions because the input device for a computer is any form of real-time physiological data, such as a heart-rate or EEG signal. This is in stark contrast to the peripheral devices that we are...