Human Behavioral Neuroscience

The Department of Human Development at Cornell University has developed a training program in Developmental Behavioral Neuroscience, which incorporates three neuroscience areas: cognitive, social, and affective-emotional processes.

The neuroscience areas mentioned above incorporate four major neuroscience methods:  a) neuroimaging b) EEG and psychophysiology c) genotyping d) pharmacological challenge of neurotransmitter functions.

Currently, the Program has five core faculty, three from the Department of Human Development (Depue, Reyna, Robertson) and two from the Department of Psychology (Finlay, Zayas). Their broader research descriptions are listed directly below. The research specializations and methods used by core program faculty are shown in Table 1. As Table 1 illustrates, we have now achieved a core set of faculty that provides a comprehensive representation of the domains and experimental methods in human developmental behavioral neuroscience. We are currently seeking to add a faculty member with expertise in genetic (e.g., polymorphisms of neurotransmitter variables) or physiological (e.g. EEG/ERP) approaches to behavioral processes and developmental disorders.

Richard Depue, Professor
Human Development
My work is on the neurobiology and neurochemistry associated with the structure of personality, emotion, and cognition. Psychobiological systems underlying personality are modulated pharmacologically in humans, and the sensitivity of the responses is assessed hormonally, emotionally, motorically, and cognitively. The work has direct implications for personality disorders and disorders of affect. Currently, the role of mu-opiates in the reward that underlies social bonding is being studied.

Barbara Finlay, Professor
Psychology / Neurobiology and Behavior
I take an approach to the structure and function of the vertebrate nervous system that is both developmental and evolutionary. Brains change in a highly constrained coordinated fashion as they enlarge, which can be related to a highly conserved sequence of structural development. Late-generated structures become disproportionately large in an extremely predictable fashion. This strengthens the case for viewing the cerebral cortex as a general-purpose learning device rather than a collection of specially-adapted mechanisms, a view that reflects on the nature of human cognition.

Valerie Reyna, Professor
Human Development
Valerie Reyna is Professor and Co-Director of the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision Research at Cornell University. She is a developer of fuzzy-trace theory, a model of memory and decision making, which has been applied in law, medicine, and public health. Her recent work has focused on numeracy and quantitative reasoning, risk perception and risk taking, neurobiological models of development, and neurocognitive impairment and genetics.

Steven Robertson, Professor
Human Development
My research focuses on how spontaneous motor activity in human infants interacts with attention and cognition during the first few months after birth and whether individual differences in early movement-attention coupling predict attention problems, such as ADHD, in childhood.

Vivian Zayas, Assistant Professor
Psychology
My research examines the cognitive-affective processes that regulate behaviors within close relationships. I approach the study of the individual and his/her relationships from a multilevel, interdisciplinary perspective that bridges the study of attachment processes with research on executive control and self-regulation. Most important, I integrate this research within a unifying framework (Zayas, Shoda, & Ayduk, 2002).

There are five associated program faculty in the Departments of Psychology, Neurobiology and Behavior, and Design and Environmental Analysis (DEA) that have expertise in areas that are complementary to our program foci. These faculty broaden neuroscience knowledge on doctoral committees and serve as resources for faculty and student research consultation and collaboration.

Elizabeth Adkins-Regan, Professor
Psychology
Hormones and Behavior, hormonal and neuroanatomical technologies in the study of the development of reproductive behavior of mammals.

Timothy DeVoogd, Professor
Psychology
Biopsychology of Learning, and Memory

Gary Evans, Professor
Design and Environmental Analysis
Psychobiology of Stress, hormonal and immunological reactivity to environmental, economic, and interpersonal stress.

Ronald Harris-Warrick, Professor
Neurobiology and Behavior
Brain and Neurotransmitter Function, drug mechanisms in the brain that underlie the behavior of mammals.

Robert Johnston, Professor
Psychology
Neurobiology of Motivation, Human Evolution, hormonal and neurotransmitter functioning in the study of learning and motivation in mammals.

Foundation 

• Emotional Functions of the Brain (Depue)
• Neuroscience and the Arts
• Human Growth & Development: Biology & Behavioral Interactions (Robertson)
• Developmental Psychobiology (Finlay)
• Social Attachment (Zayas)
• Research on Risk and Rational Decision Making (Reyna)

Intermediate

• Psychobiology of Temperament & Personality (Depue)
• Autism & Devlopment of Social Cognition
• Cognitive Neuroscience (Finlay)
• Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity in Children (Robertson)
• Neuroscience of Aging
  

Advanced

• Emotions and the Brain (Depue)
• Neurobiology of Experience (Depue)
• Autism Spectrum Conditions
• Laboratory Methods in Electroencephalography and Evoked Potentials
  
• Neuroscience of Aging
  
• Cognitive Neuroscience (Finlay)
• ADHD in Children (Robertson)
• Attention and Motion (Robertson)
• Disorders of Attachment (Zayas)

• Psychology
• Neurobiology and Behavior