LSUS professor chosen to attend institute in Boston
05/04/04

Dr. Gary E. Jones, an LSUS professor and chair of the Psychology Department, has been chosen by the American Psychological Association (APA) to attend an Advanced Training Institute on the use and logic of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) technology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston May 30-June 4.

Jones was selected by APA in a national competition for access to the institute, which will be attended by a limited number of faculty and doctoral students. The fMRI technology, an extension of standard MRI, is a new development in the medical imaging of tissue and bone.

“The functional MRI images those areas of the brain that are active in various psychological and medical states,” Jones said. “For example, although psychologists knew that the amygdala (a small section of the brain) is important in emotional experience, with the fMRI we can now determine that much of the activity is located in a particular nucleus or section of the amygdala. The fMRI is revolutionizing much of psychology, psychiatry, medicine and neuroscience.”

Various government and private agencies – including the APA and the National Institutes of Health – are supporting the training of scientists in the use of this new and advanced technology. In the week-long fMRI program, Jones will learn the basics of the technology; how to read and interpret fMRI data, and the use of fMRI technology in conducting experiments with human and animal subjects. Jones said he will be able to apply the technology to his programmatic research in visceral perception.