Congratulations to our outstanding research assistants, Alana Miller, Alyssa Shishkov, Runan Wang (Morgan Award for Academic Excellence), and Brooke Schwartzman (URCA award winner, Exceptional Academic Performance) on their graduation from UCSB in the class of 2022!
Runan Wang receives Morgan Award for Academic Excellence
Runan Wang received the Morgan Award for Academic Excellence, which is given by the UCSB Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences to the top 1-3 graduating seniors. Following her graduation, we are thrilled to welcome Runan into a new lab manager position in our lab. Congratulations, Runan!
LEAP Neuro lab presents at CNS
Mengsi Li and Jingyi Wang present their work on emotion and temporal processing at CNS in San Francisco, CA.
Regina Lapate gives keynote talk at the California University of Science and Medicine Research Symposium
Joanne selected to attend Neurohackademy
Joanne Stasiak was selected to attend Neurohackademy, a summer school on neuroimaging and data science that focuses on new technologies to analyze human neuroscience data and how to make analysis and results shareable and reproducible. Congratulations, Joanne!
Jingyi’s work selected as conference highlight at CNS
Dr. Jingyi Wang’s work titled ‘Emotional state dynamics impacts temporal memory’ was selected as a conference highlight at the annual meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society to be held in San Francisco, CA. Congratulations, Jingyi!
The LEAP Neuro lab construction is nearly done!
Our EEG and Biopac amps have arrived, and we are ready to launch our in-person work!
Grant on emotion-motion interactions for the study of Parkinson’s awarded
A large multi-site grant examining the neural bases of emotionally-modulated motor function was awarded by the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) foundation! This three-year multi-institution project led by the University of Pittsburgh (PI: Peter Strick; UCSB CO-I: Scott Grafton, UCSB Consultant: Regina Lapate) will support basic affective neuroscience work by the LEAP Neuro lab centered on emotionally-motivated action. Congrats, team!
Read more here:
The LEAP Neuro lab meets in person!
Following our university reopening and Covid-19 vaccines being more widely available, the core members of the LEAP Neuro Lab (Dr. Lapate, Dr. Jingyi Wang (postdoc), Mengsi Li (2nd year grad student) and Joanne Stasiak (first year grad student) met in person for the very first time! We can’t wait to get started.
Lab construction is ongoing!
Regina visits the construction site. Looking good!
Lapate awarded Academic Senate grant
Dr. Lapate was awarded an Academic Senate grant for 2021-2022, titled “Time and emotion integration in the human brain” which will support a new project in the lab on retrospective emotion and temporal memory led by first year graduate student Mengsi Li. Congratulations!
Jingyi selected to attend the NIMH-funded Summer school (ABCD data)
Dr. Jingyi Wang selected to attend the NIMH-funded Summer Institute on Brain Health & Development: “Modeling Developmental Change in the ABCD Study”. Congrats, Jingyi!
Isabel Schuman receives Morgan Award for Research Promise
Isabel Schuman, a graduating senior from the LEAP Neuro lab, received the Morgan Award for Research Promise, which is given by the UCSB Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences to the top 1-3 graduating seniors. Congratulations, Isabel!
Mengsi presents at SAS
Mengsi Li presented a study design for new work that she is planning to do in the lab titled ‘Time-emotion integration and affective style’ at the annual meeting of the Society for Affective Science (held virtually due to COVID-19). Stay tuned for more!
Lapate named APS Rising Star
Dr. Lapate was named a ‘Rising Star’ by the Association for Psychological Science. This distinction is given to recent PhD recipients who are nominated by their peers and whose innovative work “has already advanced the field and signals great potential for their continued contributions”. Congratulations Dr. Lapate!
The LEAP Neuro lab is launched!
We are delighted to welcome our inaugural lab members: first year graduate student Mengsi Li and senior thesis undergraduate student Isabel Schuman! The Lapate Experimental Affective Psychophysiology and Neuroscience Laboratory (LEAP Neuro Lab) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) investigates the neural mechanisms underlying emotion-cognition interactions with a focus on cognitive control and adaptive emotion. We will be asking questions such as:
How do neural representations in distinct prefrontal regions modulate goal-directed behavior?
What neural mechanisms promote adaptive responses to emotional events?
How do emotional responses impact the temporal memory and the neural coding of time?
What are the neural bases of conscious awareness?
To answer these questions, we embrace a multimodal approach that emphasizes causal inference, and includes recordings of electroencephalography, peripheral physiology, and functional neuroimaging.
Note that due to COVID-19 university closures, our lab operations are remote at the moment, but our lab construction is ongoing. Stay tuned for updates!