Publications
A selected list of publications:
Lake Stephanie, Walsh Zach, Kerr Thomas, Cooper Ziva D, Buxton Jane, Wood Evan, Ware Mark A, Milloy M J Frequency of cannabis and illicit opioid use among people who use drugs and report chronic pain: A longitudinal analysis PLoS medicine, 2019; 16(11): e1002967.
Bedi Gillinder, Hao Xuejun, Van Dam Nicholas T, Cooper Ziva D, Rubin Eric, Vadhan Nehal P, Marino Leslie, Haney Margaret Social motivational processing and interpersonal function in aging cocaine smokers Addiction biology, 2019; 24(5): 1044-1055.
Adinoff Bryon, Cooper Ziva D Cannabis legalization: progress in harm reduction approaches for substance use and misuse The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse, 2019; 45(6): 707-712.
Chao Thomas, Haney Margaret, Cooper Ziva D, Vadhan Nehal P, Van Dam Nicholas T, Van Snellenberg Jared, Bedi Gillinder Cognitive function in aging cocaine smokers Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England), 2019; 33(7): 801-810.
Cooper Ziva D, Abrams Donald I Considering abuse liability and neurocognitive effects of cannabis and cannabis-derived products when assessing analgesic efficacy: a comprehensive review of randomized-controlled studies The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse, 2019; 45(6): 580-595.
Haney Margaret, Cooper Ziva D, Bedi Gillinder, Herrmann Evan, Comer Sandra D, Reed Stephanie Collins, Foltin Richard W, Levin Frances R Guanfacine decreases symptoms of cannabis withdrawal in daily cannabis smokers Addiction biology, 2019; 24(4): 707-716.
Cooper Ziva D, Adinoff Bryon Necessity of addressing motivations for cannabis use to guide research The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse, 2019; 45(6): 547-550.
Herrmann Evan S, Cooper Ziva D, Bedi Gillinder, Ramesh Divya, Reed Stephanie Collins, Comer Sandra D, Foltin Richard W, Haney Margaret Varenicline and nabilone in tobacco and cannabis co-users: effects on tobacco abstinence, withdrawal and a laboratory model of cannabis relapse Addiction biology, 2019; 24(4): 765-776.
Cooper Ziva D, Bedi Gillinder, Ramesh Divya, Balter Rebecca, Comer Sandra D, Haney Margaret Impact of co-administration of oxycodone and smoked cannabis on analgesia and abuse liability Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2018; 43(10): 2046-2055.
Piomelli Daniele, Weiss Susan, Boyd Graham, Pacula Rosalie Liccardo, Cooper Ziva Cannabis and the Opioid Crisis Cannabis and cannabinoid research, 2018; 3(1): 108-116.
Cooper Ziva D, Poklis Justin L, Liu Fei Methodology for controlled administration of smoked synthetic cannabinoids JWH-018 and JWH-073 Neuropharmacology, 2018; 134(Pt A): 92-100.
Cooper Ziva D, Craft Rebecca M Sex-Dependent Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: A Translational Perspective Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2018; 43(1): 34-51.
Piomelli Daniele, Cooper Ziva, Abrams Donald, Grant Igor, Patel Sachin A Guide to the National Academy of Science Report on Cannabis: An Exclusive Discussion with Panel Members Cannabis and cannabinoid research, 2017; 2(1): 155-159.
Cooper Ziva D, Haney Margaret Sex-dependent effects of cannabis-induced analgesia Drug and alcohol dependence, 2016; 167(1): 112-20.
Herrmann Evan S, Cooper Ziva D, Bedi Gillinder, Ramesh Divya, Reed Stephanie C, Comer Sandra D, Foltin Richard W, Haney Margaret Effects of zolpidem alone and in combination with nabilone on cannabis withdrawal and a laboratory model of relapse in cannabis users Psychopharmacology, 2016; 233(13): 2469-78.
Haney Margaret, Malcolm Robert J, Babalonis Shanna, Nuzzo Paul A, Cooper Ziva D, Bedi Gillinder, Gray Kevin M, McRae-Clark Aimee, Lofwall Michelle R, Sparenborg Steven, Walsh Sharon L Oral Cannabidiol does not Alter the Subjective, Reinforcing or Cardiovascular Effects of Smoked Cannabis Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2016; 41(8): 1974-82.
Cooper Ziva D, Johnson Kirk W, Pavlicova Martina, Glass Andrew, Vosburg Suzanne K, Sullivan Maria A, Manubay Jeanne M, Martinez Diana M, Jones Jermaine D, Saccone Phillip A, Comer Sandra D The effects of ibudilast, a glial activation inhibitor, on opioid withdrawal symptoms in opioid-dependent volunteers Addiction biology, 2016; 21(4): 895-903.
Cooper Ziva D Adverse Effects of Synthetic Cannabinoids: Management of Acute Toxicity and Withdrawal Current psychiatry reports, 2016; 18(5): 52.
Haney Margaret, Ramesh Divya, Glass Andrew, Pavlicova Martina, Bedi Gillinder, Cooper Ziva D Naltrexone Maintenance Decreases Cannabis Self-Administration and Subjective Effects in Daily Cannabis Smokers Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2015; 40(11): 2489-98.
Balter Rebecca E, Cooper Ziva D, Haney Margaret Novel Pharmacologic Approaches to Treating Cannabis Use Disorder Current addiction reports, 2014; 1(2): 137-143.
Research and Teaching Interests:
I study how we understand language—a phenomenon that is universal across human cultures, yet unique to our species, and allows us to transmit thoughts from one mind to another. What are the component processes of comprehension? What kind of mental structures allow us to “know the meaning” of an utterance? Which distinctions in meaning do these structures make more/less salient? And what mental operations are used to manipulate them?
To understand how comprehension evolves in our minds, I study how it engages our brains: which aspects of comprehension get their own dedicated neural real estate? Which are inseparable, supported by a joint mechanism? And which rely on circuits that serve many domains beyond language? Using neuroimaging (mostly functional MRI), tools from network neuroscience, and a combination of hypothesis- and data-driven approaches, I characterize the functional regions engaged when adult native speakers understand language: their internal organization and relationship to one another (dissociable vs. tightly linked); the division of “mental labor” and the integration of information across them; and the ways they change following brain injuries.
I also use computational methods to evaluate meaning representations that are generated by algorithms trained on natural texts. I examine what knowledge—about words, their combinations, and the underlying concepts—is captured by these representations, and compare it against behavioral benchmarks. I test which features of the linguistic input are minimally required for machines to extract this knowledge.
Biography:
Idan A. Blank will join UCLA as an Assistant Professor of Psychology in July 2019. He received his PhD (2016) in Cognitive Science from MIT, working with Nancy Kanwisher and Ev Fedorenko, and continued working with Ev as a postdoctoral associate at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research. Prior to that, he studied mathematics, psychology, and theatre arts in the Lautman Interdisciplinary Program at Tel-Aviv University, where he received his MA (2011) working with Galit Yovel.
Representative Publications:
Mineroff, Z.*, Blank, I.A.*, Mahowald, K., & Fedorenko, E. (2018) A robust dissociation among the language, multiple demand, and default mode networks: evidence from inter-region correlations in effect size. Neuropsychologia, 119, 501-511. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.09.011
Blank, I.A., Kiran, S., & Fedorenko, E. (2017). Can neuroimaging help aphasia researchers? Addressing generalizability, variability, and interpretability. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 34(6), 377-393. DOI: 10.1080/02643294.2017.1402756
Blank, I.A. & Fedorenko, E. (2017) Domain-general brain regions do not track linguistic input as closely as language-selective regions. Journal of Neuroscience, 37(41), 9999–10011. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3642-16.2017
Blank, I., Balewski, Z., Mahowald, K. & Fedorenko, E. (2016). Syntactic processing is distributed across the language system. Neuroimage, 127, 307-323. DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.11.069
Blank, I., Kanwisher, N. & Fedorenko, E. (2014). A functional dissociation between language and multiple demand regions revealed in patterns of BOLD fluctuations. Journal of Neurophysiology, 112(5): 1105-1118. DOI: 10.1152/jn.00884.2013
Grand, G.*, Blank, I.A.*, Pereira, F., & Fedorenko, E. (submitted) Semantic projection: recovering human knowledge of multiple, distinct object features from word-embeddings. arXiv:1802.01241