The PLOS Cognitive Neuroscience Channel – Meet the Editors
Giovanni Bosco, Muireann Irish and Kendrick Kay announce the launch of the PLOS Cognitive Neuroscience Channel!
How does the brain process visual images? What social cognitive mechanisms are affected in dementia patients? Which neural networks are involved in making everyday decisions? Cognitive neuroscience is an interdisciplinary field spanning a wide range of areas from behavioral neuroscience to cognitive psychology to neuroimaging. Bridging the gap between mind and body, studying cognitive neuroscience is essential in better understanding not only how we perceive the world, but also how we interact with it. As such, PLOS is delighted today to launch the PLOS Cognitive Neuroscience Channel with our Channel Editors – distinguished scientific experts in their field – to hand curate the latest and most impactful research in cognitive neuroscience.
PLOS Channels are resources for research communities: a “one-stop-shop” to discover and explore content from PLOS journals as well as the broader literature, supplemented by preprints, blogs, news, events, commentary and more to keep readers up to date with the latest research in their field. The scope of the PLOS Cognitive Neuroscience Channel was developed with the Channel Editors, who will be responsible for curating the content that appears in the Channel. This Channel includes, but is not limited, to research on the following topics:
Behavioural and systems neuroscience
- Neuroscientific basis to perceptual and sensory systems
- Neuroscientific basis of reward, decision making, learning and memory
- Studies investigating the neural basis to language, problem solving, emotion and social cognition
- Behavioural neuroscience
- Cognitive and behavioral genetics in neuroscience
Brain Mapping Methods with relevance to Cognitive Neuroscience
- Functional neuroimaging (e.g. PET, fMRI, fNIRS, MEG)
- Electrophysiology (e.g. EEG, ERP, ECoG)
- Non-invasive brain stimulation (e.g. TMS, tDCS)
- Computational modeling (e.g. neural information processing) and advanced analysis methods
- Clinical lesion groups
Meet the Editors
Giovanni Bosco: My lab is interested in learning/memory and social behavior. We focus on genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that determine neuronal circuit function and environmental factors that modulate circuit development. I received my BA in Biology from Boston University (1988) and was inspired by and worked with the late evolutionary biologist, Dr. Lynn Margulis. I also studied ancient history and theology at the Università Pontificia Gregoriana, Rome, Italy. After Boston, Rome and three years of working as a tech I commenced my graduate studies at Brandeis University with Dr. James E. Haber. I was a Damon Runyon Cancer Foundation post-doctoral fellow at MIT and the Whitehead Institute with Dr. Terry L. Orr-Weaver (1998-2002). My first faculty position was at the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 2002, and was promoted to associate professor in 2008. I moved my lab to the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in 2012. Currently, I am the Oscar M. Cohn Professor in the Department of Molecular and Systems Biology. In 2015 I was honored to receive a 5-year NIH Director’s Pioneer Award for high-risk/high-reward research in “Trans-generational inheritance of social behavior.” We are exploring the possibility that experiences can be encoded in sperm and egg and then inherited. (Website & Twitter @GiovanniBosco45)
Muireann Irish: I am an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Associate Professor of Psychology at the Brain & Mind Centre, University of Sydney. Originally from Ireland, I completed a Bachelor degree in Psychology at Trinity College Dublin (1st Class Honours), then a PhD in Cognitive Neuropsychology before relocating to Australia in 2010. Leading the Memory and Imagination in Neurological Disorders team (MIND) at the Brain and Mind Centre, we focus on understanding how complex expressions of memory are disrupted in neurodegenerative disorders. I have produced >90 publications and have received over $2.5million in competitive funding from such sources as the Australian Research Council, National Health and Medical Research Council, and Dementia Australia. Additionally, my work has been recognised in a series of prestigious awards including the 2016 NSW Premier’s Prize for Science and Engineering Early Career Researcher of the Year, the 2017 L’Oréal-UNESCO International Rising Talent Fellowship, and the 2019 Cognitive Neuroscience Society Young Investigator Award. (Website & Twitter @Muireann_Irish)
Kendrick Kay: I am an Assistant Professor at the Center for Magnetic Resonance Research at the University of Minnesota. In my training, I received a BA in philosophy from Harvard University, a PhD in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed a postdoc at Stanford University. My research combines expertise in a broad range of domains including cognitive neuroscience, functional magnetic resonance imaging methods, computational modeling, and advanced data analysis techniques. The general goal of our research is to use data-intensive approaches to elucidate the computational principles by which the brain processes sensory information. I am a co-founder of the interdisciplinary conference, Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, which seeks to bridge computational-minded researchers in cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience. Our lab prioritizes reproducible research and makes freely available tools and resources (e.g., experiments, data, code) developed in the course of our research. (Website & Twitter @cvnlab)
Channel Administrator
The Channel Editors are grateful to Siddharth Ramanan, PhD student at the University of Sydney, Australia for his contributions to this Channel.
The Editors will regularly update the Channel to showcase the most up to date and impactful research and resources of interest to the cognitive neuroscience community, and look forward to engaging with the community to build a useful resource for all. To nominate content for the Channel email channels@plos.org or tweet us @PLOSChannels with the hashtag #PLOScogneurosci
Featured Image Credit: sbtlneet (pixabay, CC0)