cognitive scientist awards

  The World Health Organization has launched new membership for its   Technical Advisory Group on Behavioural Sciences for Better Health .   This group will provide scientific advice to channel behavioural science evidence into policy to achieve better health outcomes. Expert group for behavioural sciences Following a global call which attracted 340 applications from 71 countries, sixteen highly qualified advisers were selected. These experts represent a diversity of 15 nationalities across all six WHO regions and have expertise in social and behavioural sciences, including psychology, anthropology and behavioural economics. Their experience covers a variety of health topics such as maternal, newborn and child health; HIV and other sexually transmitted infections; cardiovascular disease, obesity and physical activity; vaccination; water and sanitation; and emergency preparedness and response. Importantly, they have substantial experience of using behavioural sci...

  Since its founding in 1864, Mayo Clinic has been at the forefront of pituitary tumor treatment, giving hope to thousands of patients by combining cutting-edge expertise with compassionate team-based care. Since 2013, over 1,200 patients have been enrolled in the innovative Mayo Adenoma of the Pituitary Enterprise Registry (MAPER), built by Yuki Shinya, M.D., Ph.D., research fellow at Mayo Clinic, and   Jamie J. Van Gompel, M.D. , Neurologic Surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, in collaboration with colleagues in Endocrinology and Otolaryngology. This extensive database has facilitated the development of prediction algorithms for treatment outcomes and helped more accurately develop tailored treatment plans to optimize patient outcomes. A study published in the Journal of Neurosurgery analyzed 150 patients with Cushing disease, who were operated on primarily by two neurosurgeons between 2013 and 2023, and revealed that 72% achieved complete remission after the init...

  Our latest issue explores how Miller School researchers, clinicians and educators are pioneers in brain messaging techniques that prevent illness and restore health. For decades, scientists have studied how the body communicates with itself—the cellular messages and electrical impulses that have direct bearing on our overall well-being. The spring 2025 issue of  University of Miami Medicine  magazine profiles some of the cutting-edge work at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine—in the lab and with patients—that is changing what we think “good health” really means. Our cover story, “The Mind-Body Connection,” takes a broad look at cancer survivorship programs, dealing with dementia, restoring electrical signals that enable walking, even a total-eye transplant “moonshot.” Explorations like these are becoming a core part of our medical school curriculum. “Collaboration and connection illuminate the path to...

 A pattern of distorted lines is visible as a reflection in this close-up view of a human eye. By observing the deformation of illumination patterns reflected off the eye's surface, researchers in Willomitzer's group can capture gaze direction information from tens of thousands of surface points instead of the dozen or so used by conventional eye-tracking methods. Eye tracking plays a critical role in the latest virtual and augmented reality headsets and is an important technology in the entertainment industry, scientific research, medical and behavioral sciences, automotive driving assistance and industrial engineering. Tracking the movements of the human eye with high accuracy, however, is a daunting challenge. Researchers at the University of Arizona  James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences   have now demonstrated an innovative approach that could revolutionize eye-tracking applications. Their study,  published  in Nature Communications, finds that integra...

  The peripheral nervous system (PNS) is the system of nerves and ganglia outside the brain and spinal cord.  The PNS consists of the peripheral nerves, neuromuscular junctions, cranial nerves, and spinal nerves. This system also carries information to and from the central nervous system. It's responsible for many body functions, from sensing body temperature to controlling muscle movements. When you think about the body's nervous system, the brain and spinal cord probably come to mind. Beyond those vital command centers, however, is an intricate network of nerves that stretch throughout your entire body—the peripheral nervous system. The PNS is responsible for relaying essential messages to and from the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system (PNS) is made up of two divisions: the somatic nervous system and the autonomic system. Each part of this system plays a vital role in how information is communicated throughout the body. Keep reading to learn more about wha...

  A biocomputing system consisting of living brain cells learned to recognise the voice of one individual from hundreds of sound clips Balls of human brain cells linked to a computer have been used to perform a very basic form of speech recognition. The hope is that such systems will use far less energy for AI tasks than silicon chips. “This is just proof-of-concept to show we can do the job,” says Feng Guo at Indiana University Bloomington. “We do have a long way to go.” Brain organoids are lumps of nerve cells that form when stem cells are grown in certain conditions. “They are like mini-brains,” says Guo. It takes two or three months to grow the organoids, which are a few millimetres wide and consist of as many as 100 million nerve cells, he says. Human brains contain around 100 billion nerve cells. The organoids are then placed on top of a microelectrode array, which is used both to send electrical signals to the organoid and to detect when nerve cells fire in re...