Our researchers
Behavioural Neuroscience
Researchers are focusing on the commonalities and differences between neural and hormonal mechanisms underlying food intake, self-administration of drugs and brain stimulation reward, the role of conditioning in sexual and sex-related behaviour, the neurochemical control of maternal behaviour, the interaction between primary and subordinate circadian oscillators in the brain and the structural foundations of learning and memory, particularly the role of the cerebral cortex.
Clinical & Health Research
Clinical research with children and adolescents focuses on developmental psychopathology, including risk factors for adult psychopathology and precursors of particular clinical symptoms. Research with adults examines the etiology of anxiety and depression and the relative effectiveness of therapies in controlling them. Current health research includes: the role of stress, coping variables, personality and attitudinal factors as they influence health, illness and pain perception; the role of illness as a transition from healthy aging into frail old age; the experience, interpretation of and derived meaning of major illness by the elderly; and the impact of various risk factors and disease states on cognitive function and of cognition and suggestion on pain.
Cognitive Science
Research programs in perception include perception of motion, depth, texture and color, spatial vision, and visual search, with special emphasis given to the role of attention. Research programs in cognition include studies of attention, memory, language, concepts and categorization, reading, skill acquisition, second language skills, and musical performance skills. The developmental aspects of cognition currently investigated include the origins of a theory of mind in infancy and early lexical and conceptual development in monolingual and bilingual children. Research programs in cognitive neuropsychology give special emphasis to the role of attentional strategies, to auditory information in perceptual and cognitive processing, the nature of cognitive deficits, neuropsychological mechanisms and thought disorders, using neuropsychological methods such as brain wave recording and brain imaging. Research is based on normal as well as clinical, neuropsychological and other special populations.
Human Development & Developmental Processes
Research on the origins, nature, determinants, and interaction of cognitive, emotional, perceptual and motor abilities; personality characteristics; social skills. Research programs on childhood and adolescence include: language acquisition and bilingualism; socio-emotional and cognitive processes in normal and high risk infants and young children; family and peer relations; sex differences and sex-role socialization, and predictors of adjustment, in particular across developmental transitions. Research programs on aging examine adaptation to age-related changes and transition, lifestyle factors that maintain competence in elderly women and men, and changes and continuity in cognitive abilities, language, social functioning, subjective well being and personality.