Brain Plasticity

Christina Marini

admin — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 23:41:16 +0000

Christina Marini is a research associate at BPI interested in attention and emotion. She is particularly curious about how attention and emotional balance can be cultivated through training in mindfulness. Christina also works part time as a research associate at UC San Francisco’s Department of Psychiatry. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Biopsychology from UC Santa Barbara and has been working with BPI for over a year.

Christina on working at BPI:

“I have the incredible opportunity and pleasure of working with some of the brightest neuroscientists in the United States. BPI develops products based on the principles of plasticity for a wide range of people and I am happy to be a part of such a noble cause. Being able to support the passions of such intelligent, kind, and humorous scientists is truly inspiring.”

Christina’s research projects:

Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)

Ativ Zomet

admin — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 22:07:24 +0000

Ativ Zomet is a senior research associate at BPI and a PhD candidate at Tel-Aviv University, Israel in collaboration with UC Berkeley. Her research interest at BPI is in the area of neuroscience, with emphasis on cognitive functions, attention, and behavioral training in order to promote greater cognitive plasticity despite brain injury and psychiatric disorders.
Ativ is working as part of an R&D project team to investigate and recommend exercise designs, as well as conduct focus groups with clinicians and patients to bring user feedback back into the development team. The team is creating a network of rehabilitation clinics across the San Francisco area to advise on development of cognitive remediation programs and perform clinical trials; interacting with physicians and clinicians in the network in an ongoing way to maintain operations and ensure information flows back from the network and out into the network in a reliable and useful manner.

Ativ on working at BPI:

“I’m thankful for the opportunity to work in an institute that has great scientists and research projects that help people regain their function by using the treatments we are developing. I learn a lot and am greatly inspired by the people I work with. I enjoy the days at the office.”

Ativ’s research projects:

Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)

Michael Merzenich, PhD

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 23:25:02 +0000

Michael Merzenich is the Founder and President of BPI. For more than three decades, Dr. Merzenich has been a leading pioneer in brain plasticity research. In the late 1980s, Dr. Merzenich was on the team that invented the cochlear implant, now distributed by market leader Advanced Bionics. In 1996, Dr. Merzenich was the founding CEO of Scientific Learning Corporation (Nasdaq: SCIL), which markets and distributes software that applies principles of brain plasticity to assist children with language learning and reading. He is also Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Posit Science Corporation.

Dr. Merzenich has published more than 150 articles in leading peer-reviewed journals (such as Science and Nature), received numerous awards and prizes (including the Ipsen Prize, Zülch Prize, Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award and Purkinje Medal), and been granted nearly 100 patents for his work. He and his work have been highlighted in hundreds of books about the brain, learning, rehabilitation, and plasticity. Dr. Merzenich’s work is also often covered in the popular press, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Forbes, Discover, and Newsweek. He has appeared extensively on television, and his work has been featured on four PBS specials: “The Brain Fitness Program”, “Brain Fitness 2: Sight and Sound”, “The New Science of Learning”, and “Brain Fitness Frontiers”.

Dr. Merzenich earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Portland and his PhD at Johns Hopkins. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin in Madison before becoming a professor at the University of California, San Francisco. In 2007, he retired from his long career at UCSF as Francis A. Sooy Professor and Co-Director of the Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1999 and the Institute of Medicine in 2008.

Mike’s research projects:

Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Prevention

Tinnitus Treatment

Teen Driver Training

Cognitive Tools to Improve Operational Intelligence

Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 23:17:24 +0000

Project goal: To create and evaluate the use of a new computerized training program based on the neuroplasticity principles that would help individuals diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). The training suite combines several training exercises, aimed at improving the brain machinery controlling processing speed, attention and vigilance, cognitive and social-emotion control, and is meant to provide a comprehensive treatment approach for individuals suffering from MDD.

Supported by: NIMH SBIR Phase I (pending)

Project leaders: Dr. Tom VanVleet and Dr. Mor Nahum

BPI collaborators: Ativ Zomet and Christina Marini

University collaborators: Sophia Vinogradov (Psychiatry, UCSF & SF VA Medical Center); Edward Valentine (Psychiatrist, Gloversville, NY); Dr. Diego Pizzigalli (Harvard)

Henry Mahncke, PhD

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 23:09:27 +0000

Henry Mahncke is the COO and a Senior Scientist at BPI. He is focused on large scale clinical trials to evaluate cognitive training programs in clinical indications including traumatic brain injury and schizophrenia. Prior to joining BPI, Henry earned a PhD in Neuroscience from UCSF where he studied how the brain processes information that changes over time, and had the opportunity to experiment on himself and his friends with advanced brain imaging technology. Through this work, he confirmed that he has an actual hole in his head. Following his graduate work, Henry was adopted and raised by wolves as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, after which he served in the employ of a foreign power at the British Consulate of San Francisco. He later joined Posit Science where he developed cognitive training programs and led the IMPACT study, the largest study of a commercially available cognitive training program ever performed. Henry’s goal is to make brain-plasticity-based cognitive training programs the standard of care for neurological and psychiatric disorders. He is married to a professor of biology at San Francisco State University who changes people’s brains every day, and considers his greatest experiments in brain plasticity to be his two children.

Henry on working at BPI:

“BPI is an astonishing place that blends the intellectual challenge of academic research with the pace of a software startup company. I can say I’ve never had a boring day at work.”

Henry’s research projects:

Traumatic Brain Injury

Schizophrenia Treatment

Mor Nahum, PhD

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 22:58:27 +0000

Mor Nahum is a Research Fellow at BPI interested in social cognition and perceptual learning mechanisms, and how they can be improved and strengthened in various clinical populations (e.g. individuals with schizophrenia, social anxiety, individuals with autistic spectrum disorders, etc.). Mor is also a post-doctoral fellow at Dennis Levi’s lab at UCSF, where she studies how training using action video games can improve visual function (joint project with the University of Rochester). Mor obtained her PhD in Computational Neuroscience from the prestigious Interdisciplinary Center for Neural Computation (ICNC) of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In her thesis, she studied perception and perceptual learning processes in the auditory modality, using a combination of behavioral, computational and imaging tools. Mor recently received an NIMH grant (via BPI) to support the development and testing of a computerized social cognition training tool.

Mor on working at BPI:

“Working at BPI has been an exceptionally rewarding experience for me. Throughout my graduate studies, I gained a lot of experience in developing and evaluating cognitive and perceptual training tools, and hoped that one day I would be able to use this knowledge in helping out people in need. At BPI, I found the perfect environment that provided me with the right tools to do so: scientists, developers, research assistants and numerous academic collaborators, all working collaboratively and enthusiastically to develop and validate neuroplasticity-based training tools to help ameliorate various clinical conditions and help many individuals worldwide. Throughout my work at BPI, I gained much more expertise in cognitive remediation tools, and got to collaborate with some of the most known experts in the field. The stimulating work environment (as well as the dreamy location, the beautiful city of San Francisco!), and the notion that our works actually helps people in need, make it all truly rewarding and fulfilling.”

Mor’s research projects:

Schizophrenia Prevention

Remediation of Social Cognition Deficits

Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)

Neural Correlates of Perceptual Training Improvements

Karen — Thu, 12 May 2011 22:01:08 +0000

Project goal: To investigate neural correlates & find predictive neural markers of perceptual training improvements in aging adults

Supported by: Posit Science Corporation

Project leader: Dr. Jyoti Mishra

Collaborator: Dr. Adam Gazzaley (Neurology, UCSF)

Strategies for Interference Resolution Deficits in Aging

Karen — Thu, 12 May 2011 21:57:32 +0000

Project goal: To develop & evaluate novel strategies for interference resolution deficits in aging.

Supported by: UCSF Post-doctoral Research Award, Program in Breakthrough Biomedical Research Award

Project leader: Dr. Jyoti Mishra

Collaborator: Dr. Adam Gazzaley (Neurology, UCSF)

Tom Van Vleet, PhD

Karen — Thu, 12 May 2011 21:50:03 +0000

Tom Van Vleet is a Senior Scientist at BPI. He is interested in attentional mechanisms related to the regulation of one’s attentional state, and how this process can be optimized in normal aging and remediated in neurologically and psychiatrically challenged populations. He is also a Research Neuropsychologist in the VA Northern California Health System and Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, where he investigates the neural & behavioral bases of attentional state training. Prior to joining BPI, Tom obtained a PhD in Neuroscience and Clinical Psychology from Northern Illinois University with additional training at the University of Chicago. He also completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in the Robertson lab at UC Berkeley studying perceptual and attentional processing in individuals with acquired brain injury. He recently received awards from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and the National Institute on Aging to fund his scientific work.

Tom on working at BPI:

“Working at BPI provides the unique opportunity to translate validated advances in neuroscience to therapeutic tools for addressing many of the unaddressed, or under addressed needs of clinical populations (e.g., stroke, TBI, depression). The development and deployment of neuroplasticity-based, behavioral medicine is accomplished via active collaboration of neuroscientists, technologists, engineers and product / marketing specialists both in private industry and academia. Having developed a novel attention training strategy in collaboration with fellow VA scientist, Dr. Joe DeGutis (patent pending), its immensely satisfying to direct the commercial development of this therapeutic tool.”

Tom’s research projects:

Recovery from Hemispatial Neglect

Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder

Jyoti Mishra, PhD

Karen — Thu, 12 May 2011 19:03:38 +0000

Jyoti Mishra is a Research Fellow at BPI interested in cognitive control mechanisms related to attention and working memory, and how these facilities can be strengthened in aging and in many neurologically and psychiatrically deficient populations. She is also a post-doctoral researcher at the cognitive neuroimaging laboratory directed by Dr. Adam Gazzaley at UCSF, where she investigates the neural & behavioral basis of brain plasticity related impacts of novel cognitive control training interventions. Prior to joining BPI, Jyoti obtained a PhD in Computational Neurobiology from UC San Diego and further completed a one year post-doc in the Hillyard lab studying the neural correlates of attention in video gaming experts. She recently obtained the Post-doctoral Research award (PDRA) & the Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research (PBBR) award from UCSF to fund her scientific work. Additionally, she was chosen as a finalist for the 2011 Burroughs-Wellcome Career award at the Scientific Interface, and has acquired an international fellowship from the Fogarty foundation to evaluate a novel training program to remediate attention deficits in children with ADHD in Delhi, India.

Jyoti on working at BPI:

“Working at BPI is an immensely inspiring, scientifically stimulating and personally rewarding experience all at the same time, as we daily aspire to bring a new form of ‘neuroplasticity-based’ medicine to the world and improve mental health globally. BPI provides a unique collaborative environment where computational experts and neuroscientists work together on a wide array of projects ranging from aging, attentional control, schizophrenia, social cognition, traumatic brain injury, tinnitus; enriching interactions and progress on these challenging issues inspire a feeling that no goal is impossible to achieve.”

Jyoti’s research projects:

Ameliorating ADHD in School-Aged Children

Strategies for Interference Resolution Deficits in Aging

Neural Correlates of Perceptual Training Improvements