The main offices of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience are located on West campus in one of the original Duke University buildings (creatively named the Sociology-Psychology Building) constructed in the early 1930's. Although the neogothic stone exterior looks like something from a movie set, the building contains the chair and staff offices, as well as the laboratories for many PBS faculty. The department also has facilities and resources for cognitive neuroscience research in the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience (housed in the Levine Science Research Center-LSRC) and in the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center-BIAC (housed in the Medical Center). Facilities and laboratories for our Systems and Integrative Neuroscience faculty are located in the Genome Sciences Research Building II (GSRBII) located on Research Drive.

Perception and Cognition: The Sociology-Psychology building houses the laboratories of Drs. Bauer, Dobbins, Marsh, Needham, Pelphrey, Rubin, and Schmajuk dedicated to the study of perception and cognition in human infants and adults - including the areas of memory, and visual and social perception. The research suites of individual investigators include subject testing areas as well as desk and meeting space for lab personel. Groups of investigators share other facilities, such as subject waiting areas and group testing space. The laboratories of faculty conducting research at the nearby Brain Imaging and Analysis Center (facilities described below) feature fully interconnected imaging workstations and data storage systems. The laboratories of developmental cognitive neuroscientists feature one-way mirrors to permit unobtrusive observation of participants, eye tracking, recording of event-related potentials (ERPs) and looking time, and neuropsychological testing. Most of this space has been extensively renovated in recent years.

Cognitive Neuroscience: The Center for Cognitive Neuroscience houses the offices and laboratories for 4 of our core faculty (Drs. Brannon, Cabeza, LaBar, and Mitroff) and for several of our allied faculty (Drs. Purves, Woldorff). A total of 10,000-sq. ft. of space was custom designed for office and laboratory space for core CCN faculty. In addition, the CCN maintains three EEG/ERP laboratories dedicated to the study of cognitive brain mechanisms. The labs have equipment for behavioral and electrophysiological recording (two-128 channel ERP laboratory recording set-ups and a 32-channel Neuroscan Synamps EEG/ERP system), located in electrically shielded recording chambers. Data acq uisition and stimulus presentation uses PC computers for real-time processes, and PC-NT and SUN workstations for subsequent data analysis. An adjacent room houses 6 PC workstations with 19 GB disks, one Dell PowerEdge Server with 50 GB of disk space for the lab, and a stimulus development computer. Faculty at the CCN do their imaging work in the associated Brain Imaging and Analysis Center located across the street (see below).

Behavioral and Computational Neuroscience: The Genome Science Research Building 2 (GSRB2) is home to the offices and laboratories of 5 core members our faculty (Bushusi, Cerutti, Meck, Staddon and Williams). The third floor of GSRB2 (21,444 gross sq. ft.) is a state of the art, 2-year old facility, for the study of brain and behavior using animal models. Experimental rooms are equipped with radial-arm and water mazes, activity boxes, startle, and operant conditioning chambers for study of cognitive processes in rats, mice, pigeons and fish. All behavioral test areas are soundproofed and are across the hall from animal housing. There are video-tracking systems in several of the procedure rooms that allow continuous recording in both light and dark phases of the day; computer programs allow for automated collection and analysis of maze and operant data. Laboratory space includes desktop computers for each graduate student and hared offices for postdoctoral fellows.

Communal labs available to faculty and Trainees include: 1) Surgical suite: designed for small animal surgeries and perfusions. It includes a biosafety hood, chemical hood with sink, 2 surgical stations for use with injectable or gas anesthesia, and an anti-room with refrigerator, ice machine, sink and counters for preparing animals for surgery. 2) Histology lab: houses standard hooded sink and a vented work station, as well as a radioisotope hood for assays, fully equipped with standard stirrers, shakers, balances, vibratome, microtome etc. 3) Image analysis room: Features 2 Nikon microscopes with video image analysis capability as well as stereology software (Stereologer, Microbrightfield, Inc.) attached to a motorized stage and high resolution video camera. An Olympus epifluorescence microscope is also availablehouses microscopes with digital cameras, computers and image analysis software, 4) Lab equipment room: speced for high heat load and houses low temperature freezers, brain storage refrigerators, and other communal equipment; and an electrophysiology suite equipped with a Plexon recording system for sleep analysis, single or ensemble recording studies.

Thirteen animal housing rooms provide ample caging for mice, rats, pigeons and fish for all researchers. All caging (Allentown) is individually ventilated and both bottle water and automatic watering systems are available. A cage wash facility, storage for food and bedding, and general equipment are shared by all researchers on the floor. All the animal holding/research rooms meet all federal guidelines.

Brain Imaging and Analysis
Brain imaging research and training occur at the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center (BIAC) at Duke University Medical Center, located just a short walk from both the Sociology-Psychology building on the main quad and the CCN. Dr. Gregory McCarthy is the founding director of BIAC and he serves as a core faculty member of PBS. Many core members of PBS and their students and postdocs do all of their fMRI data collection at BIAC (Drs. Cabeza, Dobbins, LaBar, Meck, Pelphrey, and Rubin).

The BIAC encompasses approximately 10,000-sq. ft. of new or newly renovated space at Duke University Medical Center. The BIAC consists of two research-dedicated imaging suites, a MRI scanner simulator facility, a behavioral testing laboratory, a computational facility, an electronics and RF coil shop, several image analysis laboratories, and offices for faculty and research staff. Data are centrally stored on enterprise-class NetApp FS250 filers which total 6 terabytes of storage, or on Compaq servers with an additional 2 terabytes of storage. BIAC has three data analysis laboratories containing 24 high-end Pentium workstations, each with 2 GB of RAM, as well as an IBM P670 SMP system with sixteen 64-bit Power4 processors and 64 GB of shared memory available for data analyses. Data analysis is performed using a mix of custom developed software, commercial software, and freely distributed software from other research centers.

The BIAC operates two research-dedicated whole-body MRI scanners. One operates at 3.0 T (Tesla) and the other at 4.0 T. Both scanners are equipped with eye-tracking capabilities and visual, auditory, and thermal experimental control systems. This environment is supplemented by custom software used for physiological and artifact monitoring and for preliminary real-time analysis. A MRI-compatible physiological monitoring system provides continuous measurement of ECG, end-tidal CO2, respiration, and non-invasive blood pressure when needed. These measures can be continuously sampled and time stamped to image acquisition.

To acclimate participants to the MRI scanner experience, the BIAC has constructed an MRI simulator system using a decommissioned GE scanner. The system includes a mock MRI scanner, a goggle-based auditory and visual stimulus presentation and data recording system, a head-movement monitoring system, and two control computers. The MRI simulator looks, sounds, and feels just like a real MRI scanner. This system is used to introduce participants to the identical experimental procedures that they will experience in the actual scanner, and to train children to participate in functional neuroimaging studies. This is done to ensure participant comfort and data quality.

Other Research Facilities at Duke University

Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development, at the Duke University Medical Center. The lab also administers the Aging Center Subject Registry, which is a data base of over 2,000 community-dwelling individuals, primarily older adults, in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, who are willing to participate in research studies. Dr. Maddin, an allied faculty member in PBS is part of this Center.

Department of Neurobiology is located entirely within the Joseph and Kathleen Bryan Research Building, occupying approximately 32,000 sq. ft. of laboratory, office and administrative space. It is a one-minute walk from CCN, BIAC, GSRBII. The Department has fully equipped laboratories for work ranging from visual psychophysics to single neuron recording in awake, behaving monkeys, to molecular analysis of synaptic function.

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences is actively involved in three major areas of research: 1) the understanding of the biological, social and behavioral mechanisms of psychiatric disorders 2) the role of behavior and the central nervous system in somatic disease, 3) clinical trials aimed at the design and implementation of new Major topics currently being addressed by Departmental investigators include mood disorders, schizophrenia, anxiety disorders, attention-deficit disorders, memory disorders, cardiovascular disease, diabetes mellitus and obesity.

Institute of Genome Sciences and Policy is Duke University's response to the array of advances in the Genome Sciences over the last decade. It offers, via it's many centers, a comprehensive approach to the study of life. The Institute, via its training programs, talk series, and integrative outreach brings together scientists, engineers, physicians, lawyers, policy makers, business leaders, economists, ethicists, and humanists to explore the genome.

Department of Psychology: Social and Health Sciences