Brian C. Rakitin, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurology and the Taub Institute,
Taub Institute Division of Cognitive Neuroscience & Department of Neurology
630 West 168th St, Box 16
New York City, NY 10032
Phone: 212-305-7476
Fax: 212-342-1838
Email: br130@columbia.edu
Ongoing Research:
Interval Timing. The main thrust of my research concerns the temporally organization of behavior over the course of several seconds, and the physiological substrates of that organization. An important part of this research is development of new tasks, paradigms, and analyses, and basic research on temporal psychophysics and the interaction of attention and timing. Currently, I am studying Parkinson's disease patients in collaboration with Dr. Karen Marder using a new, more sensitive behavioral timing battery that can reveal deficits in medicated patients. These findings allow us to pursue new avenues of inquiry including the relation between timing deficits, olfaction deficits and functional impairments that have implications for clinical rehabilitation. In collaboration with postdoctoral fellow Cindy Gooch (now at the University of Pennsylvania with Branch Cosslett) and Professor Peter Balsam, I am carrying out a series of studies examining the capacity and integrity of temporal memory, and the effects of opioid drugs on timing.
Cognition in Aging. Normal aging leads to a decline in multiple cognitive functions, even in the absence of neurodegenerative diseases. A major thrust of my collaborations with Division Director Yaakov Stern are implementations of advanced, theoretically informed methods for studying cognition in aging, both behaviorally and using functional neuroimaging. We recently concluded a series of studies using the Response Signal Method that allows analysis of speed accuracy trade-off functions. We are beginning to study executive function using methods developed by our colleague Etienne Koechlin.
Representative Publications
Rakitin, B. C., Scarmeas, N., Li, T., Malapani, C., & Stern, Y. (2006). Single-dose levodopa administration and aging independently disrupt time production. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 376-387.
Shea-Brown, E. T., Rinzel, J., Rakitin, B. C., & Malapani, C. (2006). A firing-rate model of Parkinson’s disease deficits in interval timing. Brain Research, 1070, 189-201.
Rakitin, B. C., & Malapani, C. (2008). Effects of feedback and age on immediate and delayed recall time production errors. Brain Research Bulletin, 75, 22-33.
Kumar, A., Rakitin, B.C., Nambisan, R., Habeck, C., & Stern, Y. (2008). Response-signal methods reveal age-related differences in object working memory. Psychology & Aging, 23, 315-29.