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Joncarmen Mergenthaler’s poster on consent and recruitment in human electrophysiology studies was voted Best Poster by the attendees of the International Neuroethics Society 2018 meeting in San Diego. His project includes data from 26 interviews of NIH-funded neurotechnology investigators conducting intracranial electrophysiology research in patients undergoing neurosurgical interventions. Great work JC!

Congratulations to Mia Borzello, who presented her poster “Influence of fluid intelligence, crystallized intelligence, and grey matter volumes on debt repayment strategies in older adults” at the 16th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroeconomics. (Now to write the paper!)

I’m happy to say that I’ll be participating on two panels about neuroethics in San Diego next month. I think both will open some space for really interesting discussions!

On Thursday, November 1 from 2:15-3:45pm I will be joining Jonathan Pugh, Cynthia Kubu, and Frederic Gilbert on an International Neuroethics Society panel moderated by Hannah Maslen on the topic of personality changes after deep brain stimulation. As a behavioral neurologist, I hope to contribute some lessons from frontotemporal dementia about challenges in recognizing potentially subtle and difficult-to-characterize personality changes in clinical settings.

Then on Sunday, November 4 from 6:45-8:45pm I will be on a panel hosted by Elba Serrano and Marcello Ienca, also featuring Andrea Giuffrida, Khara Ramos, Karen Rommelfanger, Ilina Singh, Tim Brown, Edda Thiels, Hank Greely, Ann Fink and Judy Illes, during the Society for Neuroscience Neuroethics Social. Among other things, I’m hoping to draw on our experience with the Neuroethics in Novel Neurotechnologies project to encourage other neuroscientists to think about building collaborations and funding research in neuroethics.

Decision Lab lunch at the Ramp! French fries or onion rings? (Toby, sorry to miss you this time…)

It was great to see the whole group gathered together for the first time over burgers (tofu or beef), beers, hummus sandwiches, steaks and grilled veggies. Special thanks also to Phaedra Bell, Alissa Bernstein, Andy Kayser and Dan Dohan for coming out to join us. In addition to kicking off the new lab name, we were also happy to introduce and start getting to know our new lab members:

Cailin Lechner joins the lab after graduating from UCLA where, quite appropriately for our group, she pursued a novel interdisciplinary degree in Human Biology and Society. Her undergraduate research addressed neurobiological, historical, and policy aspects of environmental exposure in local communities of color; at the same time she directed a sizable nonprofit organization addressing educational disparities by providing individualized tutoring and mentorship in under-resourced schools.

Heather Romero-Kornblum will soon be joining the lab after a very productive undergrad career at Foothill College and UC Berkeley (Go Bears!). At Berkeley she conducted a highly ambitious senior thesis utilizing both online and in-lab methods to investigate links between income inequality and regulatory focus in the Self, Identity, and Relationships Lab with Professor Serena Chen; for this and other work she received the Warner Brown Memorial Prize for Great Promise in Psychological Research.

And, Madhumitha Manivannan will be joining us after receiving her BA from NYU. In her undergraduate research with Professor Emily Balcetis, she independently integrated concepts from behavioral economics with the lab’s existing focus on social cognition in order to study how the framing of health messages influences individuals’ motivation to exercise. Madhu also comes to the MAC with a strong clinical background, including work with at-risk youth and older adults with chronic medical conditions, which will inform her work with our patients.

So: we’re not only excited about our new team members as individuals, but also about the great diversity of perspectives and insights they will bring to our work together.