Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

There is a rapidly growing emphasis in the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo towards using neuroscientific methods for measuring underlying cognitive processes. In the past five years, research at Waterloo has made great strides in areas such as the cognitive neuroscience of aging, the consequences of neurological disorders such as stroke and Alzheimer's disease, the neural correlates of conscious perceptual experience, as well as in basic processes involved in everyday human capacities such as decision making, memory, and attention. This work stands to make even more rapid advances in understanding this wide range of brain-behaviour relationships with the addition of event-related brain imaging. Specifically, measuring the event related potentials generated by neural activity in the brain will enable this large and vibrant group of researchers to explore in greater detail the processes that underlie such basic functions as memory, attention, perception, and decision making. Importantly, the development of such a facility for event related brain imaging will not only advance the research programs currently in place at the University of Waterloo, but will also enable our department to attract and train top-tier undergraduate and graduate students wishing to study neuroscientific questions that demand this methodology.  The ultimate result will be an increase in highly qualified personnel in Canada, and an increase in the profile of cutting edge science being conducted by researchers at Canadian universities.