Biobehavioral Research

The Center has a number of active programs in the areas of psychobiology, with emphases on behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. For example, the  Center’s  Developmental Cognitive Sciences Groupmakes extensive use of electrophysiological methods to study both typical and atypical neurological development. In addition, there is an ongoing effort to forge productive alliances between disciplines that do not usually work together. For example, one project has succeeded in merging the streams of behavior analysis, cognitive neuroscience, and psycholinguistics to study biobehavioral processes involved in the well-known N400 electrophysiological paradigm. As yet another example, techniques developed in behavioral research with humans have been adapted to develop useful animal models of conditions that lead to mental retardation and to relate behavioral deficits to the neurobiological substrate.