November 18, 2006
Interview with Dr. Charles Nelson- Harvard Medical School
By Mihaela Chraif
EJOP Editor
Dr. Nelson received an honors degree in Psychology from McGill University, a Masters degree in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin, and his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas (in developmental and child psychology). He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in electrophysiology at the University of Minnesota, joined the faculty of Purdue University in 1984, moved to the University of Minnesota in 1986, and moved to Boston in 2005. Dr. Nelson chaired the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Early Experience and Brain Development, and served on the National Academy of Sciences panel that wrote From Neurons to Neighborhoods.
Dr. Nelson interests are concerned with the effects of early experience on brain and behavioral development, particularly as such experience influences the development of memory and the development of the ability to recognize faces. Dr.Nelson studies are interested in both typically developing children and children at risk for neurodevelopment disorders, using behavioral, electrophysiological (ERP), and metabolic (MRI) tools in his research.
Professor Nelson is editor and associate editor of many scientific journals: Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental Neurophysiology American Journal of Psychiatry, Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. He is also member of many Associations and Societies: American Association for the Advancement of Science , American Psychological Society, International Society for Infant Studies, Society for Neuroscience , Society for Research in Child Development, Society for Psycho physiological Research, Society for Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics.
At present, Professor Nelson is Research Director for the Developmental Medicine Center with the Academic Title Richard David Scott Chair in Pediatric Developmental Medicine Research at Department of Pediatrics, Boston University Medical Center, Boston and Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.
EJOP: Professor Ch. Nelson, it is your first visit in Romania?
Prof. Nelson: I’ve been coming to Romania several times a year since 2001.
EJOP: Dr. Nelson what can you tell us about your projects in the memory development and Neural Bases of Face Processing?
Prof. Nelson: So, in memory development I think, what is new is understanding two things: when the memory does first start and second is applying the study of the memory development on the clinical population.
So, for example, many children have learning disabilities, there are not diagnosed until the children get to school, can we identify those children even earlier, even for infancy because they have memory problems?
In face perception work, what is new and exciting is the role of the experience in helping the arias of the brain to become specialized for face processing. So, an example is we know that babies need to see faces for face processes develop normally and what we want to know is that when they do want to see them and what exactly they do want to see, do they need to see the whole face, all the emotions, or just some of the faces, some of the emotions.
EJOP: What about your future projects in research?
Prof. Nelson: One of the most exciting projects is taking place in Bucharest. For the last six year we’ve been studying a sample of children who were abandoned in six institutions in Bucharest, we then placed half of these children in foster care. We also have a third group of children who live with their families. We’ve been studying brain development and the face processing, and memory, attention. What’s exciting now is that our children are now getting to be 6-7 years old, so we are planning a new brand study hopefully to start in autumn where we will be doing a lot of sophisticated cognitive testing and MRI as well. We’ve met a neuro- radiologist in town and we can actually do very detailing imaging of the brain, so that’s will start probably in autumn and will continue 3-4 years more after this.
EJOP: Do you find in Romania a positive environment for developing mutual relationships in cognitive neuroscience research?
Prof. Nelson: Well, yes. We love coming to Romania, we have a lot of people in research, but what is disappointing in fact is that we haven’t had much contact with the Universities. This is the first time to Cluj. We know Oana Benga for several years and we don’t know anyone at the Bucharest University- Faculty of Psychology. So, that’s what exciting in this first introduction. We established an institute of child development and are now number one and we have to be in connection with the University of Psychology in Bucharest. We employed 7 psychologists in our project, and still we don’t have anyone from the University. So, that’s what we hope to develop in the next few years.
EJOP: About U.S.A., what are the latest studies in your research area?
Prof. Nelson: Most of the work we are doing now is the face processing. The reason we are doing that is a big effort in getting involved in autism research and to go there is to understand what causes autism at the genetic level, because we are doing researches at the genetic levels and also at the neurosciences level and the other part is if we can identify children who develop autism since they are babies? We are going to start seeing babies at 3 months who have a big risk to autism and the question is: Can we predict which one has autism and which one no?
EJOP: How do you see the development tendencies of the cognitive neurosciences researches in Romania?
Prof. Nelson: Oh! Talking to people I understood that in Cluj are a number of people that are using EEG measures and that are a good first step. There is also good a behavioral neuroscience, so that means that the neuroscientist people have to start having collaborations to the cognitive psychologists.
The other imaging tool functional in USA is MRI, and I know that in Bucharest there is one scanner doing function MRI no one studied yet including the people who own it. So we might start doing that and I am hoping a lot of people will get involved. There are 2 scanners in Cluj but they cannot do functional MRI yet, but it is a matter of time only. I think that Romania is right on the coast in starting to do good working in cognitive-neurosciences but they just need to meet each other and to collaborate.
EJOP: Are you planning future collaboration between Harvard Medical School and the Faculty of Psychology- Bucharest or Cluj?
Prof. Nelson: I hope so. There are two goals: first we can sort a kind of exchange program, so that we have collaborator here and they sometimes come to Boston where we are to learn some things; the second is to settle an exchange program for college undergraduates. Harvard Medical School has one of the biggest international programs and I have the psychology students who love to have the opportunity to come here in Romania. In Bucharest I had 3 colleges graduated students and 7 undergraduate students who spend time in the lab in Bucharest, and now we would like to continue.