Sharlene Newman

Last updated
Sharlene D. Newman
Born
Abbeville, Alabama
Alma mater Vanderbilt University, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Known for Neuroimaging, functional magnetic resonance imaging
AwardsCity of Bloomington Woman of the Year Award 2018
Scientific career
Fields Cognitive neuroscience
Institutions University of Alabama, Indiana University, Carnegie Mellon University
Thesis AN fMRI of the discrepancies observed in functional neuroimaging studies of phonological perception  (1999)

Sharlene D. Newman is an American cognitive neuroscientist, executive director of the Alabama Life Research Institute at the University of Alabama (UA), Professor in the Department of Psychology at UA, and an adjunct professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University.

Contents

Her research specialises in understanding brain function using neuroimaging methods such as magnetic resonance imaging. She was one of the first to apply these neuroimaging techniques to study language processing in the human brain, which helped identify which regions of the brain are involved in different linguistic functions. She has also worked on using neuroimaging to understand other aspects of brain function, such as executive function, mathematical and spatial processing, substance addiction, and psychopathology.

Early life and education

Newman was born in Abbeville, Alabama. She studied electrical engineering at Vanderbilt University, completing her bachelor's degree in 1993. She obtained a master's degree and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 1996 and 1999, respectively. [1]

Research and career

Newman began her postdoctoral research studying language processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at Carnegie Mellon University in 1999, where she was also an adjunct professor. [2] [3] Her work was among the first research efforts to study complex language function and processing in the human brain through neuroimaging methods. [4] Her postdoctoral work examined which regions of the brain are involved with different functions in sentence comprehension and other linguistic processes. [5] [6] She also worked on applying machine learning methods to fMRI data to identify different cognitive functions from brain images. [7]

In 2004, Newman joined the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University, where has been a Professor since 2017. [3] [8] She served as the associate Vice Provost for undergraduate education from 2016 to 2019, and was named the Herman B Wells Endowed Professor in 2018. [3] [9] At Indiana, she continued her research into complex language function, using functional magnetic resonance imaging to understand the brain functions involved in sentence comprehension, [10] bilingual learning, [11] and sign-language learning. [12] Her research also studied mathematical and spatial ability in adults and children. [13] [14] [15] [16]

Newman was a founder of the Imaging Research Facility at Indiana University, and later became its director. [17] Here, her work used neuroimaging techniques to understand how substances such as alcohol and cannabis affect brain function. [18] [19] Her research also looked at other aspects of brain health, such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, and concussions. [20] [21] [22]

Newman became the executive director of the Alabama Life Research Institute at the University of Alabama in 2019, an interdisciplinary research institute focusing on healthcare research. [3]

Awards and honours

Newman was awarded the Woman of the Year Award by the City of Bloomington, Indiana in 2018 for her advocacy work on improving educational opportunities for young Black girls and women. [23] [24]

Selected publications

Newman has written over 100 publications in the field of cognitive science and neuroimaging, and authored a book chapter entitled Neural Bases of Giftedness in the book Critical Issues and Practices in Gifted Education by Carolyn M. Callahan and Jonathan A. Plucker. [25] [26] Some her publications are listed below:

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Functional magnetic resonance imaging</span> MRI procedure that measures brain activity by detecting associated changes in blood flow

Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area of the brain is in use, blood flow to that region also increases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brodmann area 9</span> Part of the frontal cortex in the brain of humans and other primates

Brodmann area 9, or BA9, refers to a cytoarchitecturally defined portion of the frontal cortex in the brain of humans and other primates. Its cytoarchitecture is referred to as granular due to the concentration of granule cells in layer IV. It contributes to the dorsolateral and medial prefrontal cortex.

Neuroscience and intelligence refers to the various neurological factors that are partly responsible for the variation of intelligence within species or between different species. A large amount of research in this area has been focused on the neural basis of human intelligence. Historic approaches to studying the neuroscience of intelligence consisted of correlating external head parameters, for example head circumference, to intelligence. Post-mortem measures of brain weight and brain volume have also been used. More recent methodologies focus on examining correlates of intelligence within the living brain using techniques such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), positron emission tomography and other non-invasive measures of brain structure and activity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Insular cortex</span> Portion of the mammalian cerebral cortex

The insular cortex is a portion of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus within each hemisphere of the mammalian brain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FreeSurfer</span> Brain imaging software package

FreeSurfer is a brain imaging software package originally developed by Bruce Fischl, Anders Dale, Martin Sereno, and Doug Greve. Development and maintenance of FreeSurfer is now the primary responsibility of the Laboratory for Computational Neuroimaging at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. FreeSurfer contains a set of programs with a common focus of analyzing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of brain tissue. It is an important tool in functional brain mapping and contains tools to conduct both volume based and surface based analysis. FreeSurfer includes tools for the reconstruction of topologically correct and geometrically accurate models of both the gray/white and pial surfaces, for measuring cortical thickness, surface area and folding, and for computing inter-subject registration based on the pattern of cortical folds.

Developmental cognitive neuroscience is an interdisciplinary scientific field devoted to understanding psychological processes and their neurological bases in the developing organism. It examines how the mind changes as children grow up, interrelations between that and how the brain is changing, and environmental and biological influences on the developing mind and brain.

Connectomics is the production and study of connectomes: comprehensive maps of connections within an organism's nervous system. More generally, it can be thought of as the study of neuronal wiring diagrams with a focus on how structural connectivity, individual synapses, cellular morphology, and cellular ultrastructure contribute to the make up of a network. The nervous system is a network made of billions of connections and these connections are responsible for our thoughts, emotions, actions, memories, function and dysfunction. Therefore, the study of connectomics aims to advance our understanding of mental health and cognition by understanding how cells in the nervous system are connected and communicate. Because these structures are extremely complex, methods within this field use a high-throughput application of functional and structural neural imaging, most commonly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electron microscopy, and histological techniques in order to increase the speed, efficiency, and resolution of these nervous system maps. To date, tens of large scale datasets have been collected spanning the nervous system including the various areas of cortex, cerebellum, the retina, the peripheral nervous system and neuromuscular junctions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Default mode network</span> Large-scale brain network active when not focusing on an external task

In neuroscience, the default mode network (DMN), also known as the default network, default state network, or anatomically the medial frontoparietal network (M-FPN), is a large-scale brain network primarily composed of the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus and angular gyrus. It is best known for being active when a person is not focused on the outside world and the brain is at wakeful rest, such as during daydreaming and mind-wandering. It can also be active during detailed thoughts related to external task performance. Other times that the DMN is active include when the individual is thinking about others, thinking about themselves, remembering the past, and planning for the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marcel Just</span>

Marcel Just is D. O. Hebb Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. His research uses brain imaging (fMRI) in high-level cognitive tasks to study the neuroarchitecture of cognition. Just's areas of expertise include psycholinguistics, object recognition, and autism, with particular attention to cognitive and neural substrates. Just directs the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging and is a member of the Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition at CMU.

Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) is a multisite study that aims to improve clinical trials for the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). This cooperative study combines expertise and funding from the private and public sector to study subjects with AD, as well as those who may develop AD and controls with no signs of cognitive impairment. Researchers at 63 sites in the US and Canada track the progression of AD in the human brain with neuroimaging, biochemical, and genetic biological markers. This knowledge helps to find better clinical trials for the prevention and treatment of AD. ADNI has made a global impact, firstly by developing a set of standardized protocols to allow the comparison of results from multiple centers, and secondly by its data-sharing policy which makes available all at the data without embargo to qualified researchers worldwide. To date, over 1000 scientific publications have used ADNI data. A number of other initiatives related to AD and other diseases have been designed and implemented using ADNI as a model. ADNI has been running since 2004 and is currently funded until 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Visual word form area</span> Region of the brain

The visual word form area (VWFA) is a functional region of the left fusiform gyrus and surrounding cortex that is hypothesized to be involved in identifying words and letters from lower-level shape images, prior to association with phonology or semantics. Because the alphabet is relatively new in human evolution, it is unlikely that this region developed as a result of selection pressures related to word recognition per se; however, this region may be highly specialized for certain types of shapes that occur naturally in the environment and are therefore likely to surface within written language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Resting state fMRI</span> Type of functional magnetic resonance imaging

Resting state fMRI is a method of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) that is used in brain mapping to evaluate regional interactions that occur in a resting or task-negative state, when an explicit task is not being performed. A number of resting-state brain networks have been identified, one of which is the default mode network. These brain networks are observed through changes in blood flow in the brain which creates what is referred to as a blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) signal that can be measured using fMRI.

The biological basis of personality is a collection of brain systems and mechanisms that underlie human personality. Human neurobiology, especially as it relates to complex traits and behaviors, is not well understood, but research into the neuroanatomical and functional underpinnings of personality are an active field of research. Animal models of behavior, molecular biology, and brain imaging techniques have provided some insight into human personality, especially trait theories.

Neuromorality is an emerging field of neuroscience that studies the connection between morality and neuronal function. Scientists use fMRI and psychological assessment together to investigate the neural basis of moral cognition and behavior. Evidence shows that the central hub of morality is the prefrontal cortex guiding activity to other nodes of the neuromoral network. A spectrum of functional characteristics within this network to give rise to both altruistic and psychopathological behavior. Evidence from the investigation of neuromorality has applications in both clinical neuropsychiatry and forensic neuropsychiatry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John-Dylan Haynes</span> British-German brain researcher (born 1971)

John-Dylan Haynes is a British-German brain researcher.

Social cognitive neuroscience is the scientific study of the biological processes underpinning social cognition. Specifically, it uses the tools of neuroscience to study "the mental mechanisms that create, frame, regulate, and respond to our experience of the social world". Social cognitive neuroscience uses the epistemological foundations of cognitive neuroscience, and is closely related to social neuroscience. Social cognitive neuroscience employs human neuroimaging, typically using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Human brain stimulation techniques such as transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct-current stimulation are also used. In nonhuman animals, direct electrophysiological recordings and electrical stimulation of single cells and neuronal populations are utilized for investigating lower-level social cognitive processes.

The occipital face area (OFA) is a region of the human cerebral cortex which is specialised for face perception. The OFA is located on the lateral surface of the occipital lobe adjacent to the inferior occipital gyrus. The OFA comprises a network of brain regions including the fusiform face area (FFA) and posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS) which support facial processing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dimitri Van De Ville</span> Swiss-Belgian computer scientist and neuroscientist specialized in brain activity networks

Dimitri Van De Ville is a Swiss and Belgian computer scientist and neuroscientist specialized in dynamical and network aspects of brain activity. He is a professor of bioengineering at EPFL and the head of the Medical Image Processing Laboratory at EPFL's School of Engineering.

Neural synchrony is the correlation of brain activity across two or more people over time. In social and affective neuroscience, neural synchrony specifically refers to the degree of similarity between the spatio-temporal neural fluctuations of multiple people. This phenomenon represents the convergence and coupling of different people's neurocognitive systems, and it is thought to be the neural substrate for many forms of interpersonal dynamics and shared experiences. Some research also refers to neural synchrony as inter-brain synchrony, brain-to-brain coupling, inter-subject correlation, between-brain connectivity, or neural coupling. In the current literature, neural synchrony is notably distinct from intra-brain synchrony—sometimes also called neural synchrony—which denotes the coupling of activity across regions of a single individual's brain.

Personality neuroscience uses neuroscientific methods to study the neurobiological mechanisms underlying individual differences in stable psychological attributes. Specifically, personality neuroscience aims to investigate the relationships between inter-individual variation in brain structures as well as functions and behavioral measures of persistent psychological traits, broadly defined as "predispositions and average tendencies to be in particular states", including but are not limited to personality traits, sociobehavioral tendencies, and psychopathological risk factors. Personality neuroscience is considered as an interdisciplinary field integrating research questions and methodologies from social psychology, personality psychology, and neuroscience. It is closely related to other interdisciplinary fields, such as social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience.

References

  1. ↑ "Sharlene D. Newman". Psychological and Brain Sciences. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  2. ↑ Newman, Sharlene D.; Twieg, Donald (2001). "Differences in auditory processing of words and pseudowords: An fMRI study". Human Brain Mapping. 14 (1): 39–47. doi:10.1002/hbm.1040. ISSN   1097-0193. PMC   6871811 . PMID   11500989.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "Cognitive Neuroscientist to Lead the Alabama Life Research Institute – University of Alabama News | The University of Alabama". 20 June 2019. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  4. ↑ Newman, Sharlene D; Carpenter, Patricia A; Varma, Sashank; Just, Marcel Adam (2003-01-01). "Frontal and parietal participation in problem solving in the Tower of London: fMRI and computational modeling of planning and high-level perception". Neuropsychologia. 41 (12): 1668–1682. doi:10.1016/S0028-3932(03)00091-5. ISSN   0028-3932. PMID   12887991. S2CID   1406691.
  5. ↑ Newman, Sharlene D; Just, Marcel Adam; Keller, Timothy A; Roth, Jennifer; Carpenter, Patricia A (2003-04-01). "Differential effects of syntactic and semantic processing on the subregions of Broca's area". Cognitive Brain Research. 16 (2): 297–307. doi:10.1016/S0926-6410(02)00285-9. ISSN   0926-6410. PMID   12668239.
  6. ↑ Just, Marcel Adam; Newman, Sharlene D; Keller, Timothy A; McEleney, Alice; Carpenter, Patricia A (2004-01-01). "Imagery in sentence comprehension: an fMRI study". NeuroImage. 21 (1): 112–124. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2003.08.042. ISSN   1053-8119. PMID   14741648. S2CID   2912716.
  7. ↑ Mitchell, Tom; Hutchinson, Rebecca; Niculescu, Radu S; Pereira, Francisco; Wang, Xuerui; Just, Marcel; Newman, Sharlene (2004). "Learning to Decode Cognitive States from Brain Images" (PDF). Machine Learning. 57: 145–175. doi: 10.1023/B:MACH.0000035475.85309.1b . S2CID   1909790 – via Springer.
  8. ↑ Newman, Morgan Newman, Phoebe Powell, Maresa Murray, Sharlene D. "What it's like to be young, black and female in Bloomington". The Indianapolis Star. Retrieved 2020-07-27.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  9. ↑ "Four Black Scholars Appointed to New Faculty Roles at Major Universities". The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. 2019-05-17. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  10. ↑ Newman, Sharlene D.; Ratliff, Kristen; Muratore, Tara; Burns, Thomas (2009-08-18). "The effect of lexical priming on sentence comprehension: An fMRI study". Brain Research. 1285: 99–108. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2009.06.027. ISSN   0006-8993. PMID   19538948. S2CID   15121484.
  11. ↑ Rossi, Eleonora; Cheng, Hu; Kroll, Judith F.; Diaz, Michele T.; Newman, Sharlene D. (2017). "Changes in White-Matter Connectivity in Late Second Language Learners: Evidence from Diffusion Tensor Imaging". Frontiers in Psychology. 8: 2040. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02040 . ISSN   1664-1078. PMC   5702476 . PMID   29209263.
  12. ↑ Williams, Joshua T.; Darcy, Isabelle; Newman, Sharlene D. (2016-02-01). "Modality-specific processing precedes amodal linguistic processing during L2 sign language acquisition: A longitudinal study". Cortex. 75: 56–67. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2015.11.015. ISSN   0010-9452. PMID   26720258. S2CID   8942227.
  13. ↑ "IU Study: Brain Scans Show Building Blocks Activate Spatial Ability in Children Better Than Board Games". www.newswise.com. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  14. ↑ Newman, Sharlene D.; Klatzky, Roberta L.; Lederman, Susan J.; Just, Marcel Adam (2005-05-01). "Imagining material versus geometric properties of objects: an fMRI study". Cognitive Brain Research. 23 (2): 235–246. doi:10.1016/j.cogbrainres.2004.10.020. ISSN   0926-6410. PMID   15820631. S2CID   6016431.
  15. ↑ Newman, Sharlene D.; Soylu, Firat (2014-07-01). "The impact of finger counting habits on arithmetic in adults and children". Psychological Research. 78 (4): 549–556. doi:10.1007/s00426-013-0505-9. ISSN   1430-2772. PMID   23907537. S2CID   18260681.
  16. ↑ Newman, Sharlene D.; Hansen, Mitchell T.; Gutierrez, Arianna (2016). "An fMRI Study of the Impact of Block Building and Board Games on Spatial Ability". Frontiers in Psychology. 7: 1278. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01278 . ISSN   1664-1078. PMC   5002428 . PMID   27621714.
  17. ↑ "Psychological and brain sciences, law faculty named Wells Professors". News at IU. 2019-05-10. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  18. ↑ "Study finds neurotransmitter may play a role in alcohol relapse, addiction". medicalxpress.com. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  19. ↑ Carter, Darla. "Indiana University studying marijuana's effect on brain". USA TODAY. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  20. ↑ Edwards, Chad R.; Newman, Sharlene; Bismark, Andrew; Skosnik, Patrick D.; O'Donnell, Brian F.; Shekhar, Anantha; Steinmetz, Joseph E.; Hetrick, William P. (2008-04-15). "Cerebellum volume and eyeblink conditioning in schizophrenia". Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging. 162 (3): 185–194. doi:10.1016/j.pscychresns.2007.06.001. ISSN   0925-4927. PMC   2366060 . PMID   18222655.
  21. ↑ Dutta, Manaswita; Murray, Laura L.; Miller, Wendy; Innis, Isaiah; Newman, Sharlene (2020-07-20). "Cognitive–Linguistic Functions in Adults With Epilepsy: Preliminary Electrophysiological and Behavioral Findings". Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. 63 (7): 2403–2417. doi:10.1044/2020_JSLHR-19-00351. PMID   32610027. S2CID   220310649.
  22. ↑ Newman, Sharlene D.; Grantz, Jesse G.; Brooks, Kelsie; Gutierrez, Arianna; Kawata, Keisuke (2020-01-01). "Association between History of Concussion and Substance Use Is Mediated by Mood Disorders". Journal of Neurotrauma. 37 (1): 146–151. doi:10.1089/neu.2019.6550. ISSN   0897-7151. PMC   7364309 . PMID   31359826.
  23. ↑ "Local Women to be Honored in March at Women's History Month Events | City of Bloomington, Indiana". bloomington.in.gov. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  24. ↑ Rosdeitcher, Liz (2018-02-20). "Interwoven Threads". ScIU. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
  25. ↑ Plucker, Jonathan A.; Callahan, Carolyn M. (2014). Critical Issues and Practices in Gifted Education: What the Research Says. Prufrock Press Incorporated. ISBN   978-1-61821-095-1.
  26. ↑ Newman, Sharlene D.; Malaia, Evie. "Neural Bases of Giftedness". PDF via ResearchGate. Retrieved 2020-07-27.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.