A man wears an EEG cap as he sits down.

$900K NSF Grant to Help Researchers Probe the Cognitive Brain Mechanisms Behind Free Will

  • by Greg Watry
Funded by a three-year $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, Distinguished Professor George R. Mangun, director of the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain, is launching a project to better understand the cognitive mechanisms behind realistic voluntary attention, or attention directed by an individual’s free will. The project will be conducted in collaboration with engineering colleagues at the University of Florida.
Portrait photo of bearded man over background with words "The Backdrop: A Podcast by UC Davis"

Podcast Features Clifford Saron on Neuroscience of Meditation

  • by Soterios Johnson
People have practiced various forms of meditation for thousands of years, usually in a religious context.  But only recently has meditation been the subject of scientific study. In the latest episode of The Backdrop podcast, Clifford Saron, a neuroscientist at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain who directs the Shamatha Project meditation study, discusses how mindfulness can affect our physical, mental and emotional health.
Lynnette Hersh

Student Autism Researcher Named a Goldwater Scholar

  • by Kathleen Holder
A UC Davis psychology major who hopes to someday work as a clinical psychologist with clients on the autism spectrum has been awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the nation’s leading scholarship for undergraduates pursuing research careers in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering. Lynnette Hersh is one of two UC Davis students and among 417 sophomores and juniors nationwide selected from a pool of more than 5,000 applicants to receive the prestigious STEM scholarship
A man covering his ears with his hands

That Song Is Stuck in Your Head, but It’s Helping You to Remember

If you have watched TV since the ’90s, the sitcom theme song, “I’ll Be There For You,” has likely been stuck in your head at one point or another. New research from UC Davis suggests these experiences are more than a passing nuisance — they play an important role in helping memories form, not only for the song, but also related life events like hanging out with friends — or watching other people hang with their friends on the ’90s television show, "Friends."
A professor up close and five students standing at other end of a conference table wave at the camer

Back in Class: Capstone Seminars Offer Seniors an In-Person Finale

  • by Kathleen Holder
Seven capstone seminars in the UC Davis College of Letters and Science this quarter have offered seniors the option of attending in person instead of online. For most of the students — and their professors — the seminars are their first in-person courses since pandemic precautions shut down the campus more than a year ago.
Illustration of woman and her brain

Making Decisions Based on How We Feel About Memories, Not Accuracy

When we recall a memory, we retrieve specific details about it: where, when, with whom. But we often also experience a vivid feeling of remembering the event, sometimes almost reliving it. Memory researchers call these processes objective and subjective memory, respectively. A new study from the Center for Mind and Brain at UC Davis shows that objective and subjective memory can function independently, involve different parts of the brain, and that people base their decisions on subjective memory — how they feel about a memory — more than on its accuracy.

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