Kudos to Pat White

My former FASEB colleague and friend Pat White has been appointed the new legislative director at NIH. This is great news for the NIH and its many friends and stakeholders. Congratulations Pat.

Jim

What the hippocampus actually does

I’ve always been attracted to a theory that, as far as I can tell, was first put forward by Tyler and DiScenna in 1986 in Behavior Neuroscience. The notion was that the hippocampus indexes cortical module associations rather than episodes. Experimental results which appear to reveal mnemonic associations in the hippocampus actually do so because of the “indexed” cortical modules (think columns) which do actually collectively (think cell assemblies) correlate with episodic memory.

The theory has been modified and amplified by many in the field over time. The conventional wisdom was that while the theory was attractive, its fatal flaw was the lack of neuroanatomical evidence for reciprocal connections between neocortex and the hippocampus. In fact, the hippocampus does receive information from the entire neocortex, but unlike the thalamus or striatum, the mapping consists of a convergent stream where many different cortical areas flow information towards the entorhinal cortex which then dumps that combined flow into the hippocampus in a reciprocal fashion (i.e. the output of the hippocampus is also the entorhinal cortex). This makes the Tyler and DiScenna’s original idea difficult to conceptualize, but not impossible.

If the hippocampus was facilitating the formation of neocortical cell assemblies in some way that acted like an index, how might such a mechanism work given the serial (rather than parallel) connectivity between the hippocampus and the neocortex via the entorhinal cortex?

I invite ideas for how this might work from loyal readers.

Jim

Accreditation of Universities in the United States

For an institution of higher education to actually give real degrees (not the fake one’s that are supposedly available for sale on the Internet), in the United States, it must be accredited. Accreditation is a long complex process whereby regional organizations sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Education review and site visit the university and eventually make a decision whether to re-accredit…or not. Our accrediting organization is the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).

Accreditation is very process-driven. From learning goals, to rubrics, all the way to evaluation of the terminal degrees for teaching faculty the institution must provide evidence that higher education is actually being provided to students according to well-defined standards. This evidence-based approach, is critical to maintaining the quality of a U.S. college diploma both in terms of international standards, but also in the context of how a degree adds value over the course of a career to an individual graduate.
But there are concerns. One is that the process is regional. The standards in one part of the U.S. may vary significantly from those in another region. Another is that, over time, the process of accreditation can assume an ever increasing portion of an institution’s collective efforts, displacing energies that perhaps ought to have been expended on education itself. These latter concerns have produced a lively debate (for an example look here).
In any case, George Mason, is now deeply into the accreditation process. It’s a good time to, both look hard at the University, but also to think about what accreditation actually means.
Jim

Blogging sabbatical

Well, I’ve had a very enjoyable sabbatical from blogging at Advanced Studies after five years of more or less constant posting. During the break, we had two amazing blizzards here in Washington and there’s still a whole lot more snow on the ground than we ever get during a “normal” winter–that even though it’s nearly 50 degrees outside and this would be the typical time we’d be seeing daffodils. Also, I’ve been teaching a very enjoyable course on the function of the hippocampus–cross listed to both advanced undergraduates and doctoral students here at Mason. I forget sometimes how satisfying teaching can be.

We saw a pretty entertaining movie the other night, Tenure, which made me laugh, but also reminded me of the very frightening events from Alabama over the past week.

In any case, we’re rested, relaxed and ready to blog.

TTYS