Russell Poldrack

Interests

Cognitive neuroscience of learning and memory, decision making, and executive control

Biography

Dr. Poldrack does not plan to accept a new graduate student for Fall of 2017. 

Russ Poldrack received his Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and did postdoctoral research in cognitive neuroscience at Stanford.  He has previously held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School and UCLA.  Dr. Poldrack's primary research interests are in the cognitive neuroscience of learning and memory, decision making, and executive function, using neuroimaging as the primary method to examine these questions.  His recent work has focused on the neural systems that support flexible and rapid inhibition of ongoing behavior, and their role in adaptive behavior and decision making.  Dr. Poldrack is also heavily involved in the development of informatics tools to support the mapping of cognitive function to neural systems, primarily through the Cognitive Atlas project.  

Another recent interest is in the application of statistical learning and network analysis methods to the analysis of fMRI data and the prediction of behavior from neuroimaging signals.  Finally, Dr. Poldrack is deeply interested in conceptual issues regarding the role of neuroimaging in cognitive neuroscience and the kinds of inferences that neuroimaging data can support.

Selected Representative Publications (See lab site for complete list of publications )

Jimura K, Poldrack RA (2012). Analyses of regional-average activation and multivoxel pattern information tell complementary stories. Neuropsychologia, 50, 544-52.

Poldrack RA (2011). Inferring mental States from neuroimaging data: from reverse inference to large-scale decoding.Neuron, 72,692-7.

Poldrack RA, Kittur A, Kalar D, Miller E, Seppa C, Gil Y, Parker DS, Sabb FW, Bilder RM (2011). The Cognitive Atlas: Towards a knowledge foundation for cognitive neuroscience. Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, 5:17.

Poldrack RA, Mumford JA, Nichols TE (2011). Handbook of fMRI data analysis. Cambridge University Press.

Xue G, Dong Q, Chen C, Lu ZL, Mumford JA, Poldrack R (2010). Greater Neural Pattern Similarity Across Repetitions is Associated with Better Memory. Science, 330, 97-101.

Poldrack, R.A., Halchenko, Y., & Hanson,S.J., (2009). Decoding the large-scale structure of brain function by classifying mental states across individuals. Psychological Science, 20, 1364-1372.

Xue G, Dong Q, Chen C, Lu ZL, Mumford JA, Poldrack R (2010). Greater Neural Pattern Similarity Across Repetitions is Associated with Better Memory. Science, 330, 97-101.

Cohen JR, Asarnow RF, Sabb FW, Bilder RM, Bookheimer SY, Knowlton BJ, & Poldrack, RA (2010). A unique adolescent response to reward prediction errors. Nature Neuroscience, 13, 669-71.

Xue G, Aron AR, & Poldrack RA. (2008). Common Neural Substrates for Inhibition of Spoken and Manual Responses.Cerebral Cortex, 18, 1923-1932.

Aron, A.R., Behrens, T.E., Frank, M., Smith, S., & Poldrack, R.A. (2007). Triangulating a Cognitive Control Network using Diffusion-weighted MRIand Functional MRI. Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 3743-52.

Tom S.M.,Fox C.R.,Trepel C.,Poldrack R.A. (2007). The neural basis of loss aversion in decision making under risk, Science, 315, 515-8.

Poldrack, R.A. (2006). Can cognitive processes be inferred from neuroimaging data? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 59-63

Courses

Books

Handbook of Functional MRI Data Analysis

 

Russell A. Poldrack, Jeanette A. Mumford, Thomas E. Nichols

Handbook of Functional MRI Data Analysis
August 2011
Bloomsbury Press
SLP Website