People are preoccupied with themselves. We spend a lot of time talking about ourselves in conversation, posting about ourselves on social media, and even thinking about ourselves when we should be paying attention in class. Assistant Professor Meghan Meyer and Matt Lieberman (UCLA) revealed a brain mechanism that biases people toward self-focus, providing the first neural explanation of why people frequently circle back to themselves.
PBS Professor Meghan Meyer's recent paper...
[more]Join us for the 32nd Annual Neuroscience Day at Dartmouth College!
This day-long event highlights neuroscience research contributions at Dartmouth and features expert talks, a poster session, a panel discussion, and a keynote lecture. Free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided to those who have registered by the registration close date. For more information and to register to attend visit: http://sites....
[more]Associate Professor Thalia Wheatley and her former graduate student Carolyn Parkinson, now an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, looked at the similarities between friends. Professor Wheatley was quoted in "The Independent", "We are social species and live our lives connected to everybody else. If we want to understand how the human brain works, then we need to understand how brains work in combination--how minds shape each other." See the full article in...
[more]On January 26, 2018 the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences welcomed Dr. Sheena Josselyn as this year’s Leaton Lecturer in Behavioral Neuroscience. Dr. Josselyn presented a tour-de-force colloquium entitled “Making Memories,” that brought to bear state of the art neurogenetic, optogenetic, and calcium imaging techniques to answer age-old questions regarding the biological mechanisms supporting the ‘engram,’ or the representation of a memory in the brain. Dr. Josselyn is a...
[more]The Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning has awarded PBS Adjunct Assistant Professor William Hudenko the 2017 Apgar Award for Innovation in Teaching. Professor Hudenko earned this award along with Dr. Sara Chaney, an Instructor in the Institute of Writing and Rhetoric, for their course, "Autism: The Science, Story and Experience." The Apgar award...
[more]Assistant Professor Meghan Meyer joined the PBS Faculty in July, 2017. She completed her Ph.D. at UCLA and post-doctoral training at Princeton University. Professor Meyer’s research focuses on integrating social and cognitive neuroscience to understand what drives our ability and need to think about the social world around us. Using brain imaging and behavioral methods she aims to answer questions such as: How do we juggle multiple social cognitive demands on the fly? How do we learn and...
[more]The Scientist magazine featured PBS Assistant Professor Kyle Smith as a "Scientist to Watch" in their November 2017 edition. Professor Smith joined the faculty at Dartmouth in 2013, and research in his lab focuses on reward response and habit formation.
From The Scientist article:
"When Kyle Smith was a kid, he didn’t like science. “I didn’t do very well” in the subject, he says. As an undergraduate at Indiana University, he initially saw himself going into film or...
[more]Each time we get feedback, the brain is hard at work updating its knowledge and behavior in response to changes in the environment; yet, if there's uncertainty or volatility in the environment, the entire process must be adjusted. A Dartmouth-led study published in Neuron reveals that there's not a single rate of learning for everything we do, as the brain can self-adjust its learning rates using a synaptic mechanism...
[more]September 20, 2017 by Office of Public Affairs
When it comes to the concept of fairness, teenagers’ ability to consider the intentions of others appears to be linked to structural changes in the brain, according to a study led by Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences Luke Chang.
The research found that cortical...
[more]On Tuesday, September 19, 2017, a one-day symposium will bring together leading researchers for talks and discussion on the developing brain and behavior.
The young brain is simultaneously endowed with infinite potential and resiliency, while also extremely vulnerable to physical and emotional insults that can have long-lasting negative consequences. This symposium will highlight cutting-edge neuroscientific research that is being brought to bear on long-standing questions regarding...
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