CNS 2025 | The 14^th Annual Distinguished Career Contributions Award (DCC)

Congratulations to Marie T. Banich, our 2025 Distinguished Career Contributions Awardee. Dr. Banich will accept this prestigious award and deliver her lecture in Boston, Massachussettes, March 31, 2025 in the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton Boston Hotel.

Cognitive Control: From Interacting Hemispheres to Purging Thoughts

Marie T. Banich, Ph.D.

Institute of Cognitive Science, Dept. of Psychology & Neuroscience Executive Director, Intermountain Neuroimaging Consortium at the University of Colorado at Boulder

Monday, March 31, 2025, 4:30PM -5:30PM (EDT), Grand Ballroom

In this talk, I will discuss the arc of my research program which has examined the neural processes that underlie cognitive control and executive function. As my research began before the widespread use of human brain imaging, my talk begins with my early studies examining how interacting brain regions work to increase our mental processing capacity. With the advent of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), my focus shifted to investigating the separate roles of lateral and medial brain regions in cognitive control. Our results suggested that lateral regions are involved in setting task goals while medial regions mediate later stage or response-related aspects of control. I will discuss how these systems interact, are affected by development and can vary based on individual characteristics, such as symptoms related to anxiety and depression. The bulk of the talk will focus on cognitive control mechanisms that serve to displace and purge information from working memory. This work is motivated by the fact that most psychiatric disorders are characterized by an inability to remove specific thoughts from working memory, such as negative thoughts about the self, or the potential threat of future harm. I will show how our research team has used fMRI to actively track the removal of information from working memory, allowing us to see thoughts vanish in real time. Evidence will be presented that demonstrates the neural and psychological specificity of different removal operations including switching to another thought, suppressing one particular thought, or clearing the mind of all thought. I will discuss how the brain represents these operations, their consequences for long-term retention of information, and how these operations act differentially on positive vs. negative thoughts. The talk will conclude by considering the implications of this research for interventions ranging from behavioral therapies to biofeedback.

About

Marie Banich, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor in the Institute of Cognitive Science and the Dept. of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is the founding and current Executive Director of the Intermountain Neuroimaging Consortium, the university’s neuroimaging center that serves the greater Denver Front Range region. Her research specializes in using brain imaging techniques, including spectroscopic, anatomical and functional methods, to understand the neural systems that allow us to direct our attention and our actions so that we can prioritize, organize, and guide our behavior in a goal-oriented manner, abilities often referred to as executive function. She investigates these issues both in neurologically typical individuals as well in individuals with traits related to psychopathology (e.g., depression, anxiety, substance use) and those with developmental challenges (learning difficulties, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder). She is one of the two co-principal investigators for the Colorado site of the ground-breaking Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (www.abcdstudy.org), a 10-year national study of over 11,000 youth across the nation at 21 different sites focused on the interaction between brain development, genetics, and environmental influences. Her research findings have been published in leading journals, including the journal Science. She is co-author of a textbook, entitled Cognitive Neuroscience, now in its fifth edition published by Cambridge University Press. Among her other professional experiences, Prof. Banich has been a member of the MacArthur Foundation on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, a Fulbright Senior Scholar in Verona, Italy, has received a James McKeen Cattell Sabbatical Award, and has served as the Director of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado Boulder for twelve years from 2004 to 2016.  She currently sits on the Advisory Council to the National Science Foundation Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences.

 

 

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About the Distinguished Career Contributions Award

The Distinguished Career Contributions Award (DCC) was established in 2012. This award honors senior cognitive neuroscientists for their sustained and distinguished career, including outstanding scientific contributions, leadership and mentoring in the field of cognitive neuroscience.

An annual call for nominations for the Distinguished Career Contributions Award is made to the membership of the society. The recipient of the prize attends the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society and delivers the Distinguished Career Contributions lecture.

The Distinguished Career Contributions (DCC) award honors senior cognitive neuroscientists for their distinguished career, leadership and mentoring in the field of cognitive neuroscience.

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Previous Winner of the Distinguished Career Contributions Award:

2024 Kia Nobre, Ph.D., Yale University
2023 Mark D'Esposito, MD, University of California, Berkeley
2022 John Jonides, Ph.D., University of Michigan
2021 Robert Desimone, Ph.D., McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT
2020 Marlene Behrmann, Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University
2019 Daniel L. Schacter, Ph.D., Harvard University
2018 Alfonso Caramazza, Harvard University
2017 Marcia K. Johnson, Yale University
2016 James Haxby, University of Trento, Dartmouth College
2015 Marta Kutas, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego
2014 Marsel Mesulam, M.D., Northwestern University
2013 Robert T. Knight, M.D., University of California, Berkeley
2012 Morris Moscovitch, Ph.D., University of Toronto