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Published August 23, 2004
Dana Foundation awards $1.85 million for brain research
Dartmouth will receive a $1.85 million grant from the Dana Foundation over three years to study the
effect of the arts on learning. The New York-based foundation announced the
grant on July 26.
Michael Gazzaniga, the David T. McLaughlin Distinguished University
Professor, Director of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, as well as a
member of the Dana Alliance for Brain
Initiatives, will serve as director of a consortium that has brought
together six institutions and nine principal investigators to shape the
research.
"This is an innovative line of research," Gazzaniga said. "It
is the first extensive scientific attempt to provide a comprehensive picture of
the role of arts education in changing the brain. Up to now there have always
been good correlations between children who take part in the arts and their
academic performance. Now we hope to see if the relationship is causal. If it
is, there will be a strong case for reintroducing the performing arts back into
our schools. We shall see where these new studies take us."
Dartmouth as the lead institution will be responsible for coordination of
research and disbursement of Dana funds to other Consortium institutions.
Investigators from Dartmouth; Harvard University; the University of California,
Berkeley; the University of Michigan; the University of Oregon; and Stanford
University are reviewing several key questions as part of this major
research effort.
They are: Does training in the arts change how the brain processes
information? Do these changes in brain processing affect how an individual
acquires new information - is there a transfer to other domains or academic
subjects? What brain regions are activated by arts training that may be used in
other tasks? Is there a critical period for acquiring an arts education?
Each of the studies will use different populations and techniques to address
the key questions under investigation, including the use of fMRI scans
and other imaging technologies. Subjects will range in age from 4 years to
80-plus years.
For example, at Dartmouth, there will be two research groups, one headed
by Kevin
Dunbar, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and of Education; and
one by Laura-Ann Petitto,
Professor of Education and Research Professor of Psychological and Brain
Sciences.
The Dunbar group will work with college-aged students, some with intensive
arts training and others with minimal training. The studies will ask if the
intensive arts students are better able to allocate attention or switch
attention between tasks, if there is a difference in each group's ability to
use abstract knowledge, and if arts education students are apt to be more
divergent than convergent in thinking. Each of these would be critical in
transfer of knowledge from one domain to another.
The Petitto group will ask whether training in the arts yields enhanced
language and reading in bilingual children and adults. The study includes
bilingual children and adults who have been bilingual from birth and have
actively maintained both languages. This group will be divided into those who
have at least 10 years' experience in the arts, which began before the age of
eight, and those who have less than three years. Single-language students will
also be examined. Optical imaging and functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) will be part of the study.
The research in all institutions will be focused on what the effects of an
arts education are on basic cognitive processes and on brain regions
responsible for these processes. These studies include the effects of arts
training on language acquisition; the effects of arts education training on
working memory; arts education and prefrontal cortical function; and arts
education, brain development, and enhanced learning of mathematics.
The other principal investigators are: Mark D'Esposito, Professor of
Neuroscience and Psychology, Neuroscience Institute and Department of
Psychology, University of California, Berkeley; John Jonides, Professor of
Psychology, Professor, Program in Neuroscience, Co-Director, functional MRI
Center, University of Michigan; Helen Neville, Director, Brain Development Lab
and Professor of Psychology, Institute of Neuroscience, Robert and
Beverly Lewis Endowed Chair, University of Oregon; Michael Posner, Faculty
Coordinator, Brain, Biology and Machine Initiative, University of Oregon;
Elizabeth Spelke, Professor of Psychology and Co-Director, Mind, Brain
and Behavior Inter-faculty Initiative, Harvard; and Brian Wandell, Isaac
and Madeline Stein Family Professor, Psychology, Neuroscience, and Electrical
Engineering, Stanford.
"The Dana Foundation takes great pride in bringing together such
a prestigious group of scientists," said Edward Rover, President of
the Dana Foundation. "Whatever the findings, we know that the research
will help advance the fields of cognitive neuroscience and arts
education."
The Dana Foundation is a private, philanthropic organization with particular
interests in brain research, immunology, and arts education. The Dana Alliance
for Brain Initiatives is a nonprofit organization of more than 200
neuroscientists, including ten Nobel laureates, committed to advancing public
awareness about the progress and benefits of brain research.
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