Author: jlolds

Native Angeleno, professor of Neuroscience and Public Policy at George Mason University

Science of Mind–the philosopher’s response

From today’s NY Times on-line, here. Tyler Burge, professor of philosophy at UCLA makes some excellent points and, as far as I know, coins a new term: “neurobabble”.

I think his strongest point is the analogy with physics–imagine if we had attempted to understand inheritance at the level of quantum mechanics (as opposed to the molecular structure of DNA). His view of modern cognitive neuroscience is that it approaching the phenomenology of human psychological events at a similarly mismatched level.

I prefer to view the modern approaches to understanding these phenomena as integrative neuroscience. The productive approach is to integrate and synthesize neurobiological knowledge across multiple, appropriate levels of the spectrum that extends from molecules to brains. Burge is simply wrong when he implies that modern cognitive neuroscientists are essentially practicing neophrenology. Successful cognitive neuroscience approaches are inherently integrative and combine molecular neuroscience, brain imaging and psychological testing superimposed upon the architecture (connectome) of neuroanatomy.

The Snow

Last winter we had 56 inches of snow at Reagan National Airport. The average is 15. Today we’ve commenced this year’s hopeful regression to the mean–I believe we’ll get around 3 inches in today’s storm. Of course, three inches of snow in DC is very different from the same in Chicago. Word from around town is that the roads are OK, but they are jammed: the general panic to purchase milk and toilet paper is on.

Looking out my office window, the trees in our small forest conjure up the apical dendrites of CA1 pyramidal cells–I can imagine the somata hidden just below the windowsill. The axons crossing those dendrites must also remain in my imagination. My view is more of a Golgi staining perspective. The real packing of neurons would be far denser.

But it’s a compelling scene for a neuroscientist, on a cold winter’s afternoon.

Annual Holiday Party

Today the Institute will take time off from science and education for a bit to celebrate. In rare Washington synchrony, we had our first dusting of snow this morning–just enough to accent the trees, not enough to cause chaos on the roads. It’s been a fine semester, although there are significant budget uncertainties ahead with Recovery Act (ARRA) funding going away next fiscal year. I’m exceptionally proud of our students, our faculty and our fine staff. It’s a pleasure to work with them.

Journal Club

I asked permission to sit in on the Journal Club that’s held regularly by our neuroscience doctoral students today. It was a real treat. They are a bright bunch.

A key point of discussion concerned the sort of operational definitions that are fairly common in behavioral neuroscience (e.g. habit learning, spatial learning). These definition are extremely important in the design of experiments and in the interpretation of results and they evolve over time: model-based and model-free were the two relevant contexts for today’s paper from Redish’s lab at University of Minnesota.

Central to these neuroscience approaches is the holy grail of dissociating the different types of learning that occur between regions of the brain. The problem of course is that many brain regions participate in any one kind of learning. Further, any experimental design, no matter how excellent (in my opinion, the late David Olton was among the very best) is likely to have any single learning experience confounded by multiple types of learning.

Jeremy Berg steps down at NIGMS

ScienceInsider has the story here.

Money quote here:

Besides running his own institute, Berg pitched in on NIH-wide projects. He helped lead efforts to overhaul the NIH peer-review system, devise new awards for young scientists, and shore up basic behavioral research at NIH. He’s also known for his openness with the research community. For example, he recently posted data on the NIGMS blog on how peer-review scoring works and a much-discussed analysis suggesting that midsize labs are the most productive.

Chistopher Hitchens on Washington

This blog is usually concerned with the intersection of science and policy, but I write it within several miles of the U.S. Capitol, hence I can’t resist to link here to Christopher Hitchen’s recent piece reviewing fiction about my home town.

Hitchens, recently diagnosed with cancer, remains one of the most intelligent writers of our time. And he really is funny, too. For loyal readers who aren’t from Washington, his piece gives you a flavor of its famous contradictions. Enjoy.

The Great American Research University: Endangered?

A National Academy Panel visited the subject recently and a news report is here. Money quote:

Panelist James Duderstadt, former president of the University of Michigan, suggested that the country needs a national education policy that encompasses its research universities. “Most countries have one, and it usually includes a statement about creating X number of world-class research universities,” Duderstadt said. “Our emphasis has always been on providing access. But maybe we should have a national policy that says we need to have a certain number of global research universities.”