CU Psychology and Neuroscience Department News
February 2012
A recent
article co-authored by CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Tor Wager (Cognitive) and
colleagues on placebo effects is receiving some popular press. The research, published in Psychological
Science, suggests that the pain reduction often associated with being distracted occurs in a different
brain area than the standard placebo effect, contrary to what was commonly believed. Read the original article, or
the Science Daily
news item, or the FARS News
news item.
January 2012
CU Psychology and Neuroscience
College Professor of Distinction Chick Judd (Social) and Professor Gary
McClelland (Social) were named co-recipients of the 2012 Jacob Cohen Award for Distinguished
Contributions to Teaching and Mentoring, given by Division 5 of the American Psychological
Association (APA). They have been invited to address the symposium at which the award will be given at
the APA convention in Orlando in August.
The research of CU Psychology
and Neuroscience professor Daniel Barth (Behavioral Neuroscience) and graduate
student Krista Rodgers (also BN) has led to the development of a potential novel
therapy for the treatment of post-traumatic brain injury (TBI). Read the CU Technology Transfer
Office press
release.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience Distinguished Professor Linda Watkins (Behavioral
Neuroscience) was named the CU-Boulder “Inventor of the Year” by the University of
Colorado Technology Transfer Office for developing “both novel drugs and new uses of known
drugs targeting various disorders with unmet medical needs.” Read more about
the award
and other winners.
December 2011
CU
Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Mark Whisman
(Clinical) was awarded a College Scholar Award from the College of Arts & Sciences. A panel
of the college’s professors of distinction bestow these awards in recognition of scholarly
accomplishments, and the awards allow faculty to pursue full time research.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience undergraduate major Sarah Elizabeth Whitney will receive the Chancellor’s Recognition Award at CU-Boulder’s Winter Graduation ceremony. One of only two students to be so honored, the award is in recognition of achieving straight As during her college career.
November 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor (Behavioral Neuroscience) Theresa Hernández
will receive one of Prevention magazine’s Integrative Medicine Awards for 2011.
The award is for her research on how acupressure can improve memory and attention in patients who
have suffered mild to moderate brain injuries. Read Prevention’s online article about the winners and their research.
October 2011
The research of CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Leaf Van Boven (Social) and
colleagues was featured a CU press release. This research, published in Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, found that people increase their charitable giving disproportionately
in response to crises that arouse their immediate emotions (e.g., the Haitian earthquake), in contrast
to more chronic crises (famine and genocide in Africa). Coauthors on the study were Van Boven students
Michaela Huber, now at Dresden University of Technology, and Laura Johnson-Graham, and CU Business School
and adjunct Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Peter McGraw. Read
the CU press release.
September 2011
Recent CU Psychology and Neuroscience PhD Laramie Duncan
(Behavior Genetics and Clinical), now at Harvard Medical School, and her advisor CU Psychology and
Neuroscience professor Matt Keller (Behavioral Genetics), received some press ahead
of their review article to be published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. In their
review of the literature, they argue that research reporting significant correlations in
gene-by-environment interactions of various psychiatric illnesses may be due to false positives and
publication bias towards positive findings. Read the Harvard Medical School press release.
CU-Boulder and the Mind Research Network of Albuquerque have joined forces to bring an fMRI scanner to Boulder. Read the CU press release about the grand opening last week. Or read the Daily Camera’s article. Or read the department’s article which also has pictures from the delivery and installation process.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Sona Dimidjian (Clinical) received some
popular press with an article about her research on postpartum depression in the CU Alumni
magazine the Coloradan. Read
the article online.
August 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience graduate student Lindsay Anderson (Cognitive) received a Chancellor’s
Award for Excellence in STEM Education (Graduate Award). This grant, as part of the iSTEM program,
was awarded for her proposal “Understanding the components of the iClicker system that
promote learning, retention, and generalization of classroom knowledge.” (Read more
about the iSTEM program.)
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Tiffany Ito (Social) received a Chancellor’s
Award for Excellence in STEM Education (Faculty Award). This grant, as part of the iSTEM program,
was awarded for her proposal to examine ways to reduce the gender achievement gap in college
science courses. (Read more about the iSTEM program.)
CU Psychology and Neuroscience postdoc Ruth Barrientos (Behavioral Neuroscience) and several
colleagues in the department received some popular press for an article published in
the Journal of Neuroscience. This research demonstrated that a small amount of
running was shown to protect aging rats from long-term memory loss following bacterial
infection. Read
the CU press release,
or the abstract and full article.
July 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Sona Dimidjian (Clinical) has been chosen to
receive one of the CU-Boulder Provost’s Faculty Achievement Awards at the Convocation Awards
Ceremony in October. She was chosen in part because of her 2010 paper in American
Psychologist entitled “How Would We Know If Psychotherapy Were Harmful?”
CU Psychology and Neuroscience
postdoc Tal Yarkoni (Cognitive) and professor Tor Wager (Cognitive)
and colleagues received some press for their recent article in Nature Methods. This paper
describes an automated brain-mapping framework that uses text-mining, meta-analysis and
machine-learning techniques to generate a large database of mappings between neural and cognitive
states. Read the CU
press release or read
the Nature
Methods article.
June 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Matt Keller (Behavioral Genetics and Institute for
Behavioral Genetics fellow) and graduate student Laramie Duncan (Behavior Genetics
and Clinical) and a co-author won the Fulker Award for the best paper published in the
journal Behavior Genetics in 2010. The award was given at the recent meeting of the
Behavior Genetics Association. Their paper, “Are extended twin family designs worth the
trouble? A comparison of the bias, precision, and accuracy of parameters estimated in four twin
family models” provided a rigorous guide to these issues in the classical twin design and
three extended twin family designs used in human behavior genetics.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Vijay Mittal (Clinical) has been awarded an R01 grant from NIH’s
Biobehavioral Research Award for Innovative New Scientists (BRAINS) program. This award program,
first launched in 2010, is designed to support the research and career development of outstanding
early-stage scientists. The award will allow the investigation of movement abnormalities as a potential
biomarker for abnormal white matter and grey matter development in the frontal-subcortical
circuits of adolescents at-risk for schizophrenia. The 5-year grant will allow his lab to
follow 150 adolescents through multiple time points during development, and to track the progression
of illness.
May 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience postdoc Tal Yarkoni (Cognitive) from
the Wager Lab was named one of the Association for Psychological Science’s
“rising stars.” Read about him and other promising young investigators in this month’s
issue of the APS Observer online.
CU Psychology and
Neuroscience staff member and undergraduate advisor Laurel Amsel has been promoted to Lead
Advisor for her many years of service to the department and to the college of Arts and Sciences,
as well for contributions to her field in general.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience adjunct professor Peter McGraw (Leeds School of Business) was in Wired magazine regarding an analysis he did of the New Yorker’s cartoon caption contest No. 281. Read the Wired article.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience undergraduate Zak Millman received
the “CU Gold Lasting Legacy award.” The award from
the CU GOLD program is given to someone
who has demonstrated outstanding leadership on campus and who has left a lasting legacy for students
after him- or herself. Zak’s legacy includes the new CU Psychology and Neuroscience
undergraduate research journal (see April entry below), as well as a mentorship program for
at-risk high school students at a local alternative school.
April 2011
CU Psychology and
Neuroscience undergraduate advisor Lily Board received the National
Academic Advising Association’s “Outstanding New Advisor Award,” one of only
five people to be so honored nationally. Check out
the list of winners
on the NACADA website.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Sona Dimidjian (Clinical) received the
CU-Boulder Graduate School’s “Outstanding Graduate Advising Award” for 2011.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor (Behavioral Neuroscience) Theresa Hernández
received some popular press regarding her public service helping people who suffer traumatic
brain injury (TBI). An article appears in the latest issue of CU-Boulder’s Colorado Arts and
Sciences Magazine. Read the article online.
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor Tor Wager (Cognitive) is coauthor on article
published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This research
demonstrated that social rejection shares similar neural components with physical pain. Read the
PNAS
abstract (with a link to the full article). This research has generated a lot of popular press as
well, e.g., CNN,
MSNBC, and National Geographic.
The CU Psychology and Neuroscience chapter of Psi Chi (international undergraduate honor society in psychology) received a grant from the CU Student Group Funding Board for the publication of the Colorado Undergraduate Journal for Psychological Research. The journal will publish undergraduate Psychology and Neuroscience theses at the end of the term. CU-Boulder Psi Chi chapter co-president Zak Millman spearheaded the effort to get the grant of over $1k. For more information, including how to submit your thesis for consideration, see the Psi Chi web page.
February 2011
CU Psychology and Neuroscience professor (Behavioral Neuroscience) Theresa Hernández
is being honored by the State of Colorado Department of Human Services. They have established an
annual Theresa Hernández Traumatic Brain Injury Trust Fund Community Award to honor Teri
(she will also be the first recipient) for her work helping citizens in the State of Colorado
recover from traumatic brain injury (TBI). Teri worked with Representative Todd Saliman to get
the state to pass a 2002 statute establishing the Colorado Traumatic Brain Injury Trust Fund
Program which has helped an estimated 4000 people deal with the effects of TBI.
Read more about the Colorado TBI Trust Fund.
January 2011
The research of CU Psychology and Neuroscience postdoc Tal Yarkoni (Cognitive) from
the Wager Lab was featured in the latest issue of CU-Boulder’s Colorado Arts and
Sciences Magazine. The article discusses his recent research article published in the
Journal of Research and Personality about how bloggers’ personalities influence
their choice of words when writing. His research suggests people don’t maintain separate
online and offline personalities. Read the
magazine article online.
