Helen Barbas, Ph.D.
Boston University School of Medicine, USA
Francois Boller, M.D., Ph.D.
INSERM, Paris, France
Maureen Dennis, Ph.D.
The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada
Jordan Grafman, Ph.D.
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, USA
Kathleen Haaland, Ph.D.
University of New Mexico, USA
Marc Jeannerod, M.D.
Institut des Sciences Cognitives & INSERM, France
Dan Ragland, Ph.D.
University of Pennsylvania, USA
Jarl Risberg, Ph.D.
Lund University, Sweden
Marina Tzakosta, Ph.D.
University of Leiden, Netherlands
Giuseppe Vallar, M.D.
Universita degli Studi di Milano - Bicocca, Italy
Xiao-Jing Wang, Ph.D.
Brandeis University, USA
HELEN BARBAS, Ph.D., is a professor of the Dept. of Health Sciences, and Director of the Neural Systems Laboratory at Boston University. Dr. Barbas obtained a Ph.D. from McGill University, and conducted postdoctoral studies at the Harvard Neurological Unit, Beth Israel Hospital, in Boston, before moving to Boston University. Dr. Barbas focuses on the organization of the prefrontal cortex in primates and its role in central executive functions. Research involves investigation of pathways between prefrontal cortices and structures associated with sensory, cognitive, mnemonic and emotional processes. The experimental approach involves neural tracers to label pathways, combined with histochemical, immunocytochemical and molecular approaches to quantitatively characterize their neurochemistry, synaptology, and features underlying excitatory and inhibitory control. Imaging and computational approaches are used to reconstruct in 3D neural pathways at the level of systems and at the synaptic level, and multidimensional analyses are used to characterize patterns of connections. A major focus of the research is to identify consistent patterns and rules of organization of pathways underlying cognitive and emotional processes in primates. Dr. Barbas is also a member of the interdisciplinary Program in Neuroscience at Boston University; the Department of Anat. and Neurobiology, Boston Univ. Sch. of Medicine; the interdisciplinary program in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry, and is affiliated with the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems at Boston University, and the New England Primate Research Center, Harvard Medical School. E-mail: barbas@bu.edu
FRANCOIS BOLLER, M.D., Ph.D., is a neurologist, presently Research Director at INSERM (Unit 549) in Paris France. He was born in Switzerland and educated in Italy where he has obtained a Medical Degree at the University of Pisa. After specializing in Neurology at the University of Milan, he went to the United States, spending several years at the Boston VA and Boston University (Dr Geschwind) He then moved to Case Western Reserve University where he obtained a PhD in Experimental Psychology. He was in charge of Neuroscience teaching at the Medical School and was nominated Teacher of the Year. In 1983, he became Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh where he founded and directed one of the first NIH funded Alzheimer Disease Research Center in the country. In 1989, he was put in charge of an INSERM Unit dedicated to the “Neuropsychology and neurobiology of cerebral aging”. His initial area of interest was aphasia. He later became primarily interested in cognitive disorders and in dementia. He is particularly interested in the correlates of cognitive disorders with pathology, neurophysiology and imaging. He was one of the first to study the relations between Parkinson and Alzheimer disease, two processes that were thought to be unrelated. His current area of interest is Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders with emphasis on the early and late stages of the disease. He is also interested in the history of Neurosciences. He is Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Neurology, the official Journal of the European Federation of Neurological Societies. He has recently completed (with Dr Jordan Grafman) the second Edition (9 volumes) of the Handbook of Neuropsychology. He has just been called to be Series Editor (together with Michael Aminoff and Dick Swaab) of the new (third) Edition of the Handbook of Clinical Neurology (formerly Vinken and Bruyn’s) published by Elsevier. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology and a member of the American Neurological Association. He has been an officer and has organized meetings for the International Neuropsychological Society and for the International Neuropsychology Symposium. E-mail: boller@broca.inserm.fr
MAUREEN DENNIS, Ph.D., Maureen Dennis, Ph.D. is a neuropsychologist with interests in neurodevelopmental disorders. She is a Senior Scientist in the Research Institute of The Hospital for Sick Children and a Professor in the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto. She holds a cross-appointment in the Department of Psychology and is a member of the Faculty of Graduate Studies (Institute of Medical Sciences) and the Collaborative Program in Neuroscience at the University of Toronto. She held a Commonwealth Scholarship during her undergraduate studies at the University of Sydney, and was the first recipient of the Benton award from the International Neuropsychological Society. In 1999, she was elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association. Her clinical and research activities concern neurocognitive function in children with congenital, perinatal, and acquired brain injury and in young adults with an earlier history of congenital and perinatal brain disorders. She collaborates in two US National Institutes of Health grants, one on the neurobiology of spina bifida, aqueduct stenosis, and Dandy-Walker syndrome, and the other on the neuropsychology of childhood head injury. E-mail: maureen.dennis@sickkids.ca
JORDAN GRAFMAN, Ph.D., received his B.A. degree from Sonoma State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1981. Immediately following his graduation, Dr. Grafman became the Neuropsychology Chief on the Vietnam Head Injury Study, a multidisciplinary study conducted at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. In 1986, he joined the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland (USA) as a Senior Staff Fellow in the Clinical Neuropsychology Section. In 1989, Dr. Grafman became Chief of the Cognitive Neuroscience Section in the NINDS. He is an elected fellow of the American Psychological Association and has received both the Defense Meritorious Service Award and the National Institutes of Health Award of Merit. He also received the Alumnus of the Year Award from Sonoma State University in 1996. Dr. Grafman's Section at the NINDS is attempting to identify the nature of representational knowledge stored in the human prefrontal cortex and the types of cognitive neuroplasticity that occur during learning and recovery from brain damage. E-mail: grafmanj@ninds.nih.gov
KATHLEEN HAALAND, Ph.D., is a board certified clinical neuropsychologist who received her Ph.D. from the University of Rochester and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin Neuropsychology Laboratory with Dr. Charles G. Matthews. She is now the Director of Psychology Research at the New Mexico Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in Albuquerque, New Mexico where she is a researcher, clinician and teacher. She is Vice-Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Dr. Haaland has been a visiting professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at the Unviersity of Washington and of Psychology at the University of Western Australia. She is funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs to conduct research on the cognitive and neuroanatomical substrates of skilled movement in patients with focal lesions due to stroke and patients with Parkinson’s Disease. She has a particular interest in limb apraxia, and much of her work supports the notion that the left hemisphere plays a special role in controlling the cognitive aspects of skilled movement. She also collaborates with Dr. Stephen Rao performing functional MRI to clarify these same issues in healthy individuals and in patients with brain damage. Dr. Haaland is the Past President of the American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology, the current President of Division 40 of the American Psychological Association, the Symposium Editor of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, and the consulting editor for several other journals. She will be the new Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society beginning in January 2005. E-mail: khaaland@unm.edu
MARC JEANNEROD, M.D., received his MD degree at the University of Lyon. From 1977 to 1998 he was the Director of Unit 94 (INSERM)
and is currently the Director of Institut des Sciences Cognitives (CNRS). Dr. Jeannerod currently serves on the editorial boards of Neuro-Image, Physiological Reviews and the European Journal of Neuroscience where he is the receiving editor. He is the President of the European Brain and Behavior Society, a member of the Scientific Council for the Human Frontier Science Program, Conseil Scientifique des Sciences de la Vie and the Volkswagen Stiftung in Hannover. E-mail: jeannerod@isc.cnrs.fr
HARVEY LEVIN, Ph.D., is a Professor at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where he is the Director of Research in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and Chief of Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. He is also a Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery. Dr. Levin's research over the past 25-plus years has focused on characterizing the long-term neurobehavioral consequences of traumatic brain injury (TBI), including children and adults. Much of Dr. Levin's research has addressed the cognitive and behavioral sequelae of TBI in relation to pathophysiology, including focal and diffuse features of the brain insult seen on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). This work has included projects based at specific centers primarily in Texas and multicenter projects such as the NIH Coma Data Bank. Dr. Levin recently designed and directed the outcome component of NIH-supported clinical trials concerning the efficacy of hypothermia for treatment of acute TBI in adults and children. With NIDRR and NIH support, Dr. Levin is studying the effects of methylphenidate on working memory deficit as a consequence of severe TBI in adults and the usefulness of an errorless learning technique to facilitate learning in children with cognitive deficits resulting from TBI. His research also emphasizes executive functions in children and adults following TBI. Currently, he is using functional MRI to study changes in patterns of brain activation associated with working memory in children following TBI.
E-mail: hlevin@bcm.tmc.edu
DAVID LORING, Ph.D., is a board-certified neuropsychologist in the Department of Neurology at Georgetown University Medical Center. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Neuropsychology from the University of Houston in 1982, and did postdoctoral training in the Department of Neurology at Baylor College of Medicine and the Division of Neurosurgery at the University of Texas Medical Branch before being appointed to the neurology faculty at the Medical College of Georgia in 1985. He clinical research interests include outcome prediction in epilepsy surgery patients, cognitive and neurobehavioral effects of antiepileptic drugs, and variability in cerebral language representation. His books include Amobarbital Effects and Lateralized Brain Function (1992) and The INS Dictionary of Neuropsychology (1999). Dr Loring is also one of the coauthors for the fourth edition of Neuropsychological Assessment (2004). E-mail: dwl7@georgetown.edu
DANIEL RAGLAND, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also training director for the neuropsychology program in their Brain Behavior Laboratory. Dr. Ragland received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology at The American University. His initial neuroscience training in schizophrenia research occurred while at the Brain Disorders Branch of the National Institutes of Mental Health, followed by a National Research Service Award post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania where he has remained for the past 13 years. During this period Dr. Ragland’s research has focused on understanding the role that prefrontal and temporal-limbic regions play in executive and memory functions, and in how these functions and networks are disrupted by schizophrenia. This research has included use of neuropsychological and functional neuroimaging (133Xenon, PET, and fMRI) methods, and has resulted in numerous publications and invited lectures. Currently he is using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to understand the role that the prefrontal cortex plays in strategic memory functions including the use of semantic information to organize encoding and facilitate retrieval. E-mail: ragland@bbl.med.upenn.edu
JARL RISBERG, Ph.D., received his B.A. degree in psychology at the University of Lund, Sweden, in 1963. During the following years he worked at the University Hospital in Lund and was heavily involved in the development and use of different, at that time, new methods for measurement of the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF). He pioneered the use of rCBF measurements in the study of the functional organization of the intact human brain. He and his collaborators also studied and are still studying dementing disorders like Alzheimer’s disease and frontal lobe dementia (Pick’s diseases) as well as different psychiatric diseases. His academic career includes Ph.D.-degree and associate professorship in neuropsychology in Lund (1973) followed by a one-year research position at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. Since 1992 his is full professor of neuropsychology at Lund University and head of the Neuropsychology Section at the Departments of Clinical Neuroscience and Psychology, Lund University. He has been involved in a several INS activities since the 1970:ies including service as board member and program chairman. E-mail: Jarl.Risberg@psychology.lu.se
MARINA TZAKOSTA, received her M.A. in General Linguistics at the University of Crete, Greece and her Ph.D. in the Department of Linguistics of the University of Leiden/Holland Institute of Generative Linguistics, The Netherlands. E-mail: M.Tzakosta@let.leidenuniv.nl
GIUSEPPE VALLAR, M.D., is a Professor of Physiological Psychology at the University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy. He obtained the M.D. degree at the University of Milano and took postgraduate training to qualify as a neurologist. Since the 1980s, Dr. Vallar has been at the Department of Neurology of the University of Milano, and at the MRC Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge, UK. He has held a Professorship in Physiological Psychology at the University of Roma “La Sapienza” (1992-1998). Dr. Vallar has been President of the Italian Neuropsychological Society.
Dr. Vallar’s main research interests involve the neuropsychology of working memory --particularly phonological short-term memory--, the syndrome of spatial unilateral neglect, and the methodological foundations of neuropsychology. He has published over 140 scientific papers, and three co-edited books: i) Vallar, G., & Shallice, T. (Eds.). (1990). Neuropsychological impairments of short-term memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ii) Vallar, G., Cappa, S. F., & Wallesch, C.-W. (Eds.). (1992). Neuropsychological disorders associated with subcortical lesions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. iii) Karnath, H.-O., Milner, A. D., & Vallar, G. (Eds.). (2002). The cognitive and neural bases of spatial neglect. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dr. Vallar’s web site is: http://www.psicologia.unimib.it/vallar/index.htm.
E-MAIL: giuseppe.vallar@unimib.it
XIAO-JING WANG, Ph.D., is Professor of Neuroscience and Physics, Center for Theoretical Neurobiology and National Volen Center for Complex Systems, at Brandeis University. Dr. Wang obtained his Ph. D. in Physics from the University of Brussels. He was a a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California at Berkeley and University of Chicago, and a Forgaty fellow at the National Institute of Health. Dr. Wang uses theory and computational modeling to study the cellular and network basis of cortical functions, in close collaboration with experimentalists. The focus of Dr. Wang's research is the circuit organization, memory and cognitive functions of the prefrontal lobe. Using biophysically-realistic models, his lab investigates mechanistic issues of persistent activity in prefrontal neurons (the cellular process underlying working memory): role of of the NMDA receptors, dopamine modulation, organization of multiple types of inhibitory neurons, coherent cortical rhythms. He also explores cognitive computations by recurrent cortical networks, such as decision-making, sustained selective attention, timing, reward-based behavior. For more information: www.wanglab.brandeis.edu Email: xjwang@brandeis.edu
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