The mission of the BEL is to advance scientific knowledge of the human brain by studying its electrical activity. Our research has primarily been with dense-array electroencephalography (EEG) developed by EGI, and we coordinate closely with EGI’s methodology research. Increasingly, the high-performance computation provided by the NIC is extending the precision and flexibility of our research techniques. Extending beyond EEG measures, our current research includes magnetoencephalography (MEG), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and a new technology now being developed for dense-array brain monitoring at EGI, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS).

The topics of BEL research vary widely with the interests of EGI, NIC, CFC, and Psychology scientists, postdocs, and graduate students. A common theme is an effort to understand the neural mechanisms of human cognition, experience, and behavior. One line of work examines the influence of emotion, stress, and motivation. Another line of work focuses on basic learning processes and their implications for education and training. Finally, the BEL research team integrates its work with clinical applications of modern neuroimaging measures, with a current interest in neurophysiological and psychological aspects of epilepsy.

Perhaps the most important way to support the BEL mission is to provide good training to scientists and physicians working with advanced neuroimaging measures. The primary focus is training on using EGI’s dense-array EEG technology, both for psychological and medical research and clinical applications. Given the increasing importance of multimodal neuroimaging measures, we are working to extend our training mission to the integration of dense-array EEG with structural MRI, tractography, functional MRI, MEG, and NIRS measures as well. This means we have to become effective students of the new advances in these several technologies, as well as students of the continuing advances in dense-array EEG measurement and analysis.

• Current NIMH (U.S. National Institute of Mental Health) projects are “Depression and Anxiety as Neural Control Processes" (Don M. Tucker, Principal Investigator) and “Context Violation in Depression" (Phan Luu, PI). These projects examine the influence of depression on neural mechanisms of learning, decisions, and self-evaluation.

In this project, we hope to clarify the neurophysiological mechanisms underlying negative cognitive biases. The aims of the present project are to (1) study the relation between electrophysiological measures of expectancy violations and depression severity and their effects on learning, (2) understand the consequence of successful therapy on cognitive biases associated with depression, as indexed by electrophysiological measures, and (3) study how depressive symptoms, such as negative and positive cognitive biases, and coping associated with depression map onto the corticolimbic structures underlying evaluative appraisals of expectancy violations.

Data from the present project will produce some of the first evidence relating well recognized biases of depression, which are the targets of cognitive-behavioral therapy, with neural mechanisms underlying self-regulatory processes. The results will have implications for understanding treatment failures and successes, and for dealing with what may be a lawful set of relations between depression severity, evaluative biases, engagement versus disengagement of negative feedback from the environment.

In addition to these basic research studies, BEL scientists, engineers, and technicians work on a number of Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects, for both EGI and Cerebral Data Systems (CDS). CDS is a new EGI subsidiary formed to support the commercial application of technologies developed in the UO NeuroInformatics Center. Current SBIRs deal with dense array NIRS technology, the integration of NIRS with dense-array EEG, dense array EEG for neonatal brain monitoring, an advanced hydrogel formulation for multimodal (optical, acoustic, electrical) brain monitoring, a low power low noise chip for ambulatory dense array EEG, and the use of scanning current injection and a high esolution computational model to estimate the electrical conductivity of human head tissues.

• Current DARPA (U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) SBIR studies include “Neurotechnology for Intelligence Analysts" (Don M. Tucker, PI), which examines neural mechanisms of expertise in visual analysis of geospatial satellite imagery.

• Current ONR (U.S. Office of Naval Research) SBIR work includes a project for “Virtual Reality Training Environments" (Phan Luu, PI) in collaboration with Gwen Campbell at NAVIR, and “Developing Expertise" (Phan Luu, PI). Both projects study aspects of human learning to improve performance in stressful military performance environments.