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Posts classified under: Psychology

Eisenberger headshot

Naomi Eisenberger, Ph.D.

Faculty Member

Professor
Department of Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles

Personal Statement

I am a nationally recognized expert on the neural correlates underlying social rejection and connection as well as how these neural responses relate to both mental and physical health. I have been the PI or Co-I on many NIH-funded projects that have examined the neural underpinnings of specific social processes or the relationships between social processes and health outcomes. One line of my research has utilized neuroimaging techniques to investigate the neural correlates of social rejection and social connection. Through this line of research, I have shown that the experience of social rejection relies, in part, on physical pain-related neural regions and that the experience of social connection relies, in part, on reward-related neural regions. In another line of research, I have examined the effect of an experimental inflammatory challenge on feelings of depressed mood and social disconnection as well as the neural underpinnings of these changes. Here, we have shown that inflammation can increase feelings of social disconnection by increasing neural sensitivity to positive and negative social stimuli. More recently, I have been examining the neural correlates underlying prosocial behavior as well as the positive impact of prosocial behavior on both mental and physical health. I have also been examining how social connection and disconnection (loneliness) relate to fear learning and extinction, which have implications for mental health outcomes. In summary, I have the expertise, leadership, training, and motivation necessary to successfully carry out the proposed research project.

Lieberman Headshot

Matthew Lieberman, Ph.D.

Faculty Member

Professor
Department of Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles

Personal Statement

My research applies a social cognitive neuroscience approach to examine questions of social and self-understanding, of social pains and pleasures, the social propagation of persuasive information, and of self-control and emotion regulation.  Our work uses a variety of approaches including functional magnetic imaging (fMRI), functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) that allows for up to 6 people to be scanned simultaneously while interacting, and electrocorticography (ECoG).   This work has been funded by NIMH, NIA, NSF, DARPA, DOD, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.  Based on the fact that my lab has published a significant portion of the fMRI work done on implicit emotion regulation, I believe I am well-qualified to serve as a co-I for this proposal.

Satpute headshot

Ajay B Satpute, Ph.D.

Faculty Member

Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles

Personal Statement

Ajay B. Satpute received his doctorate in psychology from UCLA and completed postdoctoral training at Columbia University. His research in social and affective neuroscience combines multimodal brain imaging (3T and 7T fMRI), psychophysiology, experimental psychology, and computational approaches including pattern analysis and deep learning, to model mind-brain-behavior relations. Before joining UCLA, he was on the faculty at Northeastern University and Pomona College. He is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience and previously served as President of the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society.

Ritchey Headshot

Maureen Ritchey, Ph.D.

Faculty Member

Associate Professor
Department of Psychology
University of California, Los Angeles

Personal Statement

I am interested in the cognitive and neural processes supporting episodic memory, or memory for specific events. Episodic memories influence the way we make plans and decisions, interact with others, and understand and reflect on our past. And yet, episodic memories are selective and, at times, imprecise. Why do we remember some events vividly, while others fade or change over time?

In the MemoLab, we investigate the mechanisms of memory in humans using a variety of cognitive neuroscience methods, including functional MRI, brain stimulation, eye-tracking, and computational modeling.

Some of our key questions include: How does the hippocampus interact with cortical networks to support memory reconstruction? How do we use social and conceptual priors to make predictions about events, and does this affect what we store in memory? How can we change or control what we remember about an event?

For more information and a complete list of publications, visit my lab website at www.thememolab.org.

Biography

Maureen Ritchey received her Ph.D. in Psychology and Neuroscience from Duke University, followed by postdoctoral training at the University of California, Davis. Before joining UCLA, she was on the faculty at Boston College for several years. Dr. Ritchey’s laboratory investigates the cognitive and neural underpinnings of episodic memory, taking a multi-methodological approach to understanding how we encode and reconstruct the details of complex events. This research has been supported by a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation and grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.

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