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Aron K. Barbey

American cognitive neuroscientist

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He has used both classical lesion methods and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques to better understand neural architecture and its relationship to intelligence. Barbey used lesion mapping to study Vietnam veterans who had suffered brain trauma. He was able to record diagnostic images of their brains and relate this anatomical data to their documented problems, creating a "brain atlas" linking cognitive functions to neural organization. He has suggested a framework called “structured event complex theory” that describes the inferential architecture of the prefrontal cortex.

His research group examines the effects of physical fitness, nutrition and cognitive neuroscience interventions (including TDCS) on brain health and intelligence across the human lifespan. In 2019, Barbey was awarded the Mensa Foundation Prize for his neuroscientific work studying human intelligence.

Education and career

Aron Barbey received a B.A. from the University of Texas at Dallas in 1999, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, in 2007.

From 2007-2011 Barbey was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Cognitive Neuroscience Section of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. There he studied Vietnam veterans affected by brain trauma. They experienced differential deficits depending on the locations and size of their injuries. Barbey also served as an adjunct professor of psychology at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., beginning in 2008.

In 2011 Barbey was appointed to the College of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Illinois, and became an Institute Affiliate of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. By 2012, he was the director of the Decision Neuroscience Laboratory at the Beckman Institute. In 2018, the Center for Brain Plasticity at the Beckman Institute was formed, under the leadership of co-directors Aron Barbey and Neal J. Cohen, leaders of the center's Intelligence, Learning, and Plasticity (ILP) Initiative.

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