Stephen Cowen

Interim Director, Cognition & Neural Systems Graduate Program

Associate Professor, Cognition & Neural Systems

Director, Decision Making and Learning Laboratory

Psychology 442 (Office)
Life Sciences North 347 (Lab)

Pronouns:

He, Him, His

Links

Research Interests:

Understanding how the coordinated activities of groups of neurons and the release of dopamine in the brain contribute to learning, memory consolidation during sleep, and navigation.
Exploring how communication between neurons is disrupted in aging and Parkinson’s disease.
Development of novel instrumentation for visualizing and modulating brain activity, measuring dopamine release, and quantifying behavior to further the above research objectives.

Updated: 07/05/22

Selected Publications:

Cowen S.L., Nitz D.A. (2014) Repeating Firing Fields of CA1 Neurons Shift Forward in Response to Increasing Angular Velocity, Journal of Neuroscience, 34(1):232-41.
Miller M.A., Thomé A, Cowen S.L. (2013) Intersection of Effort and Risk: Ethological and Neurobiological Perspectives, Frontiers in Neuroscience, 7:208.
Cowen S.L., Davis G.A., Nitz D.A. (2012) Anterior cingulate neurons in the rat map anticipated effort and reward to their associated action sequences. Journal of Neurophysiology 107(9):2393–2407.
Cowen, S.L. and McNaughton, B.L (2007) Selective delay activity in the medial prefrontal cortex of the rat: The contribution of sensory-motor information and contingency. Journal of Neurophysiology, 98(1):303-16.
Maurer, A.P., Cowen, S.L., Burke, S.N., Barnes, C.A. and McNaughton, B.L. (2006) Phase precession in hippocampal interneurons showing strong functional coupling to individual pyramidal cells. The Journal of Neuroscience, 26:13485-13492.

Courses Taught:

*Year listed indicates when this individual last taught the specified course.

Updated: 08/14/24