About Us
About the Lab
Our Lab is Interested In…
examining the functional anatomy of attention and information selection in the healthy human brain, and how these neural circuits breakdown in schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Our studies utilize multimodal neuroimaging techniques…
including functional magnetic resonance imaging, scalp-recorded event-related potentials, physiological autonomic and endocrine markers, and behavioral neurocognitive testing batteries to map brain behavior relationships.
History of the Lab
The NIRL was founded in 1999 by Aysenil Belger to advance our understanding of neurocognitive and neurophysiological factors that controbute to the onset and severity of mental illness using integrated neuroimaging approaches. By building a research program across Duke and UNC Psychiatry and Psychology programs, our lab has built capacity to work in multidisciplinary teams to address the challenge of comp[lex neuropsychiatric disorders and precedent neurobiological and psychosocial risk factors.
Our lab has participated in the leadership of numerous multisite studies, including the BIRN, the NAPLS, the PRONET, funded by both Federal and Private sources to inform how biological and psychosocial factors contribute to the onset and severity of mental illnesses. Over the years, our research has integrated emerging new technologies and data analytic tools to enhance our ability to capture functional and structural features of the brain and its interactions with social and environmental variables.
Our lab has received over 25 million dollars in funding and has been a training and growth environment for over 20 graduate students, 18 postdocs, 12 K-mentees, and innumerable undergraduate students. Our lab has also been a home for undergraduate and graduate students funded through the Castillo Scholarship, the Gil internship, numerous T32 postdoctoral and predoctoral training grants, NIDA scholarship, BBSP training grant, Amgen scholarships, UNC SURF program, Holderness Fellowship, NRSA, NARSAD, FOH amongst others.