Neal J. Cohen
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Neal J. Cohen is a professor of
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
in the Cognitive Neuroscience division of the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...
. He is appointed as a full-time faculty member in the
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology The Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology is a unit of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign dedicated to interdisciplinary research. A gift from scientist, businessman, and philanthropist Arnold O. Beckman (1900–2004) and ...
at the University of Illinois. He is the founding director of the Center for Nutrition, Learning, and Memory (CNLM), a partnership of the University of Illinois and Abbott Laboratories as of 2011. He is also the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Initiative (IHSI) at the University of Illinois, formed 2014. Cohen is known for his work on
memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembe ...
,
amnesia Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or brain diseases,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be temporarily caused by t ...
, and
learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, Attitude (psychology), attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, non-human animals, and ...
, particularly his theories of multiple memory systems and the role of the
hippocampus The hippocampus (: hippocampi; via Latin from Ancient Greek, Greek , 'seahorse'), also hippocampus proper, is a major component of the brain of humans and many other vertebrates. In the human brain the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus, and the ...
in relational memory. He is a co-author of ''Memory, Amnesia, and the Hippocampal System'' (1993) and ''From conditioning to conscious recollection: Memory systems of the brain'' (2001).


Education and career

Neal Jay Cohen is the son of Albert and Natalie Cohen. He attended the
University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...
, where he became interested in
amnesia Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or brain diseases,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be temporarily caused by t ...
and how
memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembe ...
and
learning Learning is the process of acquiring new understanding, knowledge, behaviors, skills, value (personal and cultural), values, Attitude (psychology), attitudes, and preferences. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, non-human animals, and ...
work. After working with
Larry Squire Larry Ryan Squire (born May 4, 1941) is an American neuroscientist. He is a professor of psychiatry, neurosciences, and psychology at the University of California, San Diego, and a Senior Research Career Scientist at the Veterans Affairs Medical ...
, Cohen received his Ph.D. in 1981. He went on to the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...
(MIT), first as a postdoctoral researcher, and then as a research scientist. While at MIT he worked with neuroscientist Suzanne Corkin. He then joined the faculty of
Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...
, where he collaborated with Michael McCloskey. In 1990 Cohen joined the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he became the director of the Amnesia Research Laboratory. Cohen has collaborated extensively with Howard Eichenbaum. During "the first and only time during our collaboration that we were actually able to physically work together for any extended period of time", a leave that Cohen spent at
Wellesley College Wellesley College is a Private university, private Women's colleges in the United States, historically women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henr ...
, they began work on the book ''Memory, Amnesia, and the Hippocampal System'' (1993). They have since published another book, ''From conditioning to conscious recollection: Memory systems of the brain'' (2001). On December 19, 2011, it was announced that Neal Cohen would be the founding director of the Center for Nutrition, Learning, and Memory (CNLM), a multi-disciplinary institute for the study of nutrition, learning and memory, created through a partnership of the University of Illinois and Abbott Laboratories. It was said to be the first multi-disciplinary center for nutrition and cognition research in the world. On June 30, 2014, Neal Cohen was named the founding director of the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Initiative (IHSI) at the University of Illinois. Cohen has been active in promoting and working to establish the
Carle Illinois College of Medicine The Carle Illinois College of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. History The Carle Illinois College of Medicine was established on March 12, 2015, after the University of Illinois Board of Trustees ap ...
, proposed for the University of Illinois. He has served on the president's advisory task force, the committee to develop the new institution's core curriculum, and on the search committee to recruit the inaugural dean.


Research

Prior to the ground-breaking work of
Brenda Milner Brenda Milner (''née'' Langford; born 15 July 1918) is a British-Canadian neuropsychologist who has contributed extensively to the research literature on various topics in the field of clinical neuropsychology. Milner is a professor in the Dep ...
, Suzanne Corkin and others studying the amnesiac patient
Henry Molaison Henry Gustav Molaison (February 26, 1926 – December 2, 2008), known widely as H.M., was an American epileptic man who in 1953 received a bilateral medial temporal lobectomy to surgically resect parts of his brain—the anterior two third ...
, researchers had assumed that memory was an emergent property of the cerebral cortex or brain as a whole. Because of H.M., they began to explore the possibility that there were multiple memory systems in the brain: different types of learning and memory that were supported by mechanisms in different areas. In particular, the
medial temporal lobe The temporal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain. The temporal lobe is involved in pr ...
was involved in the creation of new memories and their consolidation, but not their storage. Cohen has made important contributions to this research, beginning with his Ph.D. work. In 1980, at the University of California, San Diego, Neal Cohen and
Larry Squire Larry Ryan Squire (born May 4, 1941) is an American neuroscientist. He is a professor of psychiatry, neurosciences, and psychology at the University of California, San Diego, and a Senior Research Career Scientist at the Veterans Affairs Medical ...
were able to show that amnesic patients were just as effective as normal subjects at the task of learning to read mirror-reversed print. The types of skills affected by amnesia were fundamentally different: patients' ability to learn certain types of motor skills, "knowing how", was not affected, even though their ability to remember what had happened, "knowing that", was affected. This result supported the distinction between procedural and
declarative knowledge Declarative knowledge is an awareness of facts that can be expressed using declarative sentences. It is also called theoretical knowledge, descriptive knowledge, propositional knowledge, and knowledge-that. It is not restricted to one specific ...
and the idea that they are based on different physiological memory systems in the brain. In 1981 Cohen received his Ph.D. for the thesis ''Neuropsychological Evidence for a Distinction Between Procedural and Declarative Knowledge in Human Memory and Amnesia''. Since then, through interdisciplinary and convergent studies, Cohen has attempted to more fully understand ways in which experience is represented and stored by the brain. A major focus of his work has been the role played by the
hippocampus The hippocampus (: hippocampi; via Latin from Ancient Greek, Greek , 'seahorse'), also hippocampus proper, is a major component of the brain of humans and many other vertebrates. In the human brain the hippocampus, the dentate gyrus, and the ...
, located in the medial temporal lobe of the brain, in forming relational memories. Cohen and Howard Eichenbaum have developed a theory of memory, learning and amnesia, known as relational memory theory. In this view, the hippocampus is essential in elemental cognitive processes that bind elements of experience in memory, and link memories together, forming a representation of the relations among "the constituent elements of experience" referred to as a "memory space". The hippocampus rapidly forms associations between incoming information about people, places, objects, and their spatial, temporal, and interactional relationships, and connects them to reactivated relational memories. In the underlying representational scheme, events are represented as relations among elements of experience in a particular context. Episodes are represented as the flow of events across time. Memory is represented as a dynamic and flexible relational network of events and episodes, from which novel inferences can be drawn. For example, a person's name and their face are stored as separate pieces of information in the brain, but bound together in relational memory so that the person can be recognized the next time they are seen. The property of "representational flexibility" is considered to be critical, and as derivable from "the kind of system that must necessarily evolve to store environmental spatial information". Cohen has also examined the question of whether memory for certain types of relations is more heavily dependent on the activity of the hippocampus, and whether there are types of memories that do not depend on the hippocampus. His goal is to understand the functional architecture underlying memory: the neural substrates and subsystems of the hippocampal memory system. Cohen has developed new approaches and methodologies for assessing memory. Approaches include eye movement monitoring, structural and functional brain imaging, and computational modeling methods. Some of the techniques involved are functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), Diffuse Optical Imaging, Event Related Brain Potentials (ERPs), and Magnetoencephalography (MEG). Techniques such as eye movements make it possible to assess responses without relying on verbal reports. Computers can be used to examine where a person directs their attention, and relate patterns of attention to the person's previous exposure to a stimulus and their conscious and unconscious levels of response. Cohen works with the general population and with specific populations of patients experiencing memory impairments or brain disorders. He is involved in neuropsychological studies and in developing specific interventions. The focus of the research is basic, rather than therapeutic. However, it is hoped that understanding the types of deficits affecting a patient, in specific cases, may make it possible to identify and take advantage of their remaining strengths to improve their interactions with others. Because of a lack of facilities in Champaign-Urbana, Cohen and his students travel to medical schools elsewhere to work with patients who have brain disorders such as amnesia,
Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease and the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include problems wit ...
, or
schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...
. Cohen has collaborated extensively with Melissa C. Duff and others at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City, as well as with researchers at Washington University, Vanderbilt, Northwestern and
Rush Medical College Rush Medical College is the medical school of Rush University, a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Established in 1837, it is affiliated with Rush University Medical Center, and John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. ...
.


Awards and honors

In 2012, Cohen was one of six Illinois professors elected to membership in the
American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...
, in recognition of his “pioneering research on memory and amnesia, distinguishing brain systems and psychological characteristics that distinguish declarative and procedural memory.”


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Neal J. Living people 21st-century American psychologists American neuroscientists Year of birth missing (living people)