I worry often about a confusion between two styles of governance:
that of the academic department and that of a research institute.
Stand-alone institutes like Woods Hole or Santa Fe don’t have this
problem because of their distance from the day-to-day life of the
modern american university, but places like Krasnow often do.

In a a sense, the academic department can be viewed as a homeostat
with teaching loads, research, service and the rest of faculty
activities in exquisite balance. The raison d’etre for the balancing
act can best be seen in the context of the continuing obligation to
educate students. Such a permanent state of affairs resonates well
with the notion of keeping everything else in balance.

In contrast, a research institute can be viewed best I think as a
heterostat–that is a system that seeks to move always towards a
maximum condition (in our case the production of new scientific
knowledge). Hence the successful scientific institute is constantly
reorganizing itself to optimize this goal often in an opportunistic
sense. Thus, a good research institute most constantly be open to
reconfiguration in order to pursue new scientific opportunities.

This heterostatic mode can be quite stressful to faculty who are, in
the academic part of their lives, operating within the homeostatic
balancing mode of an academic department. This is especially salient
with respect to governance where a department chair might respond to
enforced change by rebalancing the loads and programs back to a
perceived status quo. In contrast, an institute director, might
respond to the same change by reconfiguring loads and programs to
achieve greater scientific success.

Jim

Next week is the Spring meeting of the Krasnow Advisory Board, a unique group of distinguished volunteers from around the country who volunteer their time to give me advice on the strategic direction of the Institute. The Krasnow Advisory Board is somewhat different from a typical governance board for a stand-alone institute in that its responsibility is not fiduciary (those responsibilities ultimately reside with the George Mason University Board of Visitors). Rather, the Advisory Board plays a key role in positioning the Institute vis a vis the external world, particularly the world of decision makers and external stake-holders. This is also a distinct role from the Krasnow Scientific Advisory Board, which I will discuss in a later blog entry.

At next week’s meeting our Advisory Board will have a great opportunity to get updates on the construction and the MRI installation as well as plans for the two new PI’s who will be coming on board over the summer (more about them later also). I’ll get advice from the Board in three main areas: first, how do we build a long term endowment for the Institute that can serve as a resource for the new scientific hires that are now coming down the road. Second, how do we adjust to macro-changes in the government R&D funding environment. Finally, I’ll ask the Board to commence a discussion on Phase III of the Krasnow Institute–which will further expand our space by another 12,500 square feet.

Jim

Yes, sometimes I really just care about Hoops! Congrats to the Mason
Patriots, who today upset the defending NCAA Champion UNC Tarheels.

Jim

Today marks the end of Spring Break at Mason and the beginning of the
second half of the Spring Semester. I’m teaching a course on signal
transduction this time around and quite enjoying the material–as much I
hope as our graduate students are. I also have a graduate student
getting ready to defend this term and another one advancing to candidacy
this week (we hope) by passing his qualifying exams. So time passes,
even in academia.

Here at Krasnow we’re only about six weeks out from taking delivery of
the new MRI magnet. Add to that welcoming two new P.I.’s , the building
expansion and a couple of job transitions–well, you can see it’s an
exciting time.

Jim

One of the real challenges (and opportunities) of rapid change is the imposed need to revisit the scientific footprint of Krasnow’s mission periodically. For example: how is the notion of exploring the science underlying human cognition reified in neuroscience? Is it an emergent of the underlying neuronal dynamics? Is it an emergent of arrays of Hebbian cell assemblies? Is it also contained deep within the expression genetics of certain putative cognitive molecules (like say FOXP2)? And is it properly studies within the context of brain diseases?

By the same token how do we study cognition in other scientific contexts? Is there a relation between social cognition and social complexity –I believe there is. Can we learn about cognition from behavioral studies of our close evolutionary cousins (the great apes)–and perhaps distant ones also (Aplysia).

Then there is the key question of cognitive machines–not that I expect a computer to pass the Turing test tomorrow, but rather what can we learn about cognition that is man-made, rather than of man.

It’s very important for an institute director to routinely revisit the reason for the scientific program.

Just a short note to express my continued gratitude for the superb, if overworked, administrative staff here at Krasnow. Led by Staff Director Jennifer Sturgis, they keep the support systems running smoothly which are absolutely critical for our scientific success. This takes a level of dedication that goes far beyond what we have a right to expect, particularly at this time of very rapid growth.

Jim

Yesterday afternoon I had a very enjoyable discussion with Professor Layne Kalbfleisch, on the Krasnow faculty, about the subject of deception detection. We returned to the subject partly out of the need to review some of the more recent imaging literature on the subject, but also partly because both of us are of the opinion that the field in at risk of going off-track. What do I mean by this?

Let’s think about different forms of lies: first there are the lies that are essentially related to omission of the truth (e.g. have you ever met the person in this picture); second there are lies on the fly–lies that are the spontaneous product of a non-planned decision to deceive a questioner. So called “white lies” are of this type: “did he mention my work when you met with him?” You answer no because he did mention his low opinion of the work in question and you feel the need to protect the feelings of the person being lied to. Finally there are the well-rehearsed planned lies of an intelligence agent under deep-cover (a professional liar) or alternatively the sociopathic liar (who lies as an avocation).

In truth the only lies we are really interested in (from the standpoint of practicality) are the well rehearsed lies of the professional liar. The lies of omission while potentially important from the standpoint of some criminal interrogations are far too embedded in a background of cognitive distractors (think Stroop tests) to be of much use.

So what about the well-rehearsed lie? What is it about such a lie that makes it both neurobiologically interesting and at the same time so challenging for the detector. Both Kalbfleisch and I start from the notion that in fact, the well-rehearsed lie is in fact a hidden altered state of consciousness. I speculate that such lies in fact become as much of an altered state for the individual doing the deception as any of the more commonly known altered states of consciousness such as dreaming or the effects of a hallucinogenic drug. They become altered states of consciousness (rather than say a lie as an “act”) because, only with an altered state of consciousness, can the deceiver avoid detection under a wide variety of non-predictable and mentally challenging conditions (e.g. a polygraph test).

If this is correct, then one might surmise two things: first that rather the spending our precious research dollars studying the unimportant versions of lying with expensive technologies (like fMRI) one might instead do better by studying other hidden altered states of consciousness (Kalbfleisch suggested those associated with eating disorders, I was thinking of the functional alcoholic). The second is that one might investigate the perturbation of one altered state of consciousness with another: imagine looking at the interaction of a well-rehearsed lie with the use of a hallucinogenic drug. It might even be that one altered state might be used to probe for the existence of another altered state. And it certainly might be empirical practice for professional liars to avoid situations whereby another altered state might unpredictably perturb the hidden altered state of the well rehearsed lie.

Finally one might think about the interface, voluntarily created by the deceiver, that stands between the hidden altered state, and the outside world. Seems to me that inevitably this would add a psychophysically detectable delay–on the other hand, if responses were coordinated and synchronized at the interface (think cerebellum), then perhaps such a delay would not, under normal circumstances be detectable.

Jim

Sue Halpern in today’s NY Times Book Section, reviews a new novel by Allegra Goodman called Intuition. From the excellent review, it’s a novel that I think may be very worth reading–it is about two postdocs in an NIH-funded lab and a cancer discovery that gets published in Nature and then can’t be replicated. I’m always very interested to see the issues related to the ethical conduct of research in something other than a depressing news article.

Jim

With two major construction projects going on simultaneously at Krasnow, I’m getting used to the notion of at least one anomaly per day. Yesterday we were dealing with fire code issues, today we are dealing with conduit long buried under the concrete slab of the current Krasnow facility. In a sense, both of these two projects are complex adaptive systems that are intersecting one another in both space and time. The results are going to be often unpredictable and riding heard on the process so that we get a positive item is going to be my main priority for the next bit.

This is a great case of what we learned about in literature class during freshman year: pathetic fallacy. Except in this case it’s the construction which is reflecting the underlying intellectual pursuits of our scientists.

Jim

You need to be a subscriber to read today’s column, but it’s priceless–on why academics make poor managers. I’ve posted the on-line discussion as a link and will post the full piece in several weeks when it makes its way onto the freebie site.

Money line:
“Things are made worse when one considers the type of person who gets the dean’s (or principal’s) job. They tend to be respected academics who have risen tot he top by the power of their research–and the determination of their networking. They may have little notion of how to manage things”

Jim