Labs
Laboratory of Neurocognitive Development
Director, Principal Investigator:
Beatriz Luna, PhD
Location: 121 Meyran Ave. Suite 111
Contact: 412-383-8178
Graduate Student Advisees:
- Victoria Dionisos; Cognitive Psychology
- Maria Perica; Clinical Psychology
- Destiny Wright; Clinical Psychology
- Amar Ojha; Neuroscience
- Shan McKeon; BioEngineering
Education & Training
- PhD, University of Pittsburgh
Research Interest Summary
Research Interests
Characterizing neurocognitive development through adolescence probing cognitive control, reward, and reinforcement learning using multimodal neuroimaging (fMRI, DTI, task-, resting state-, structural- fMRI, MRSI, PET, and EEG). Our primary focus is on normative development that can inform abnormal trajectories such as in mental illness.
Representative Publications
Tervo-Clemmens B, Calabro FJ, Parr A, Fedor, Foran W, Luna B. A Canonical Trajectory of Executive Function Maturation from Adolescence to Adulthood. Nature Communications (In Press)
McKeon SD, Calabro F, Thorpe RV, de la Fuente A, Foran W, Parr AC, Jones SR, Luna B. Age-related differences in transient gamma band activity during working memory maintenance through adolescence. Neuroimage. 2023 Jul 1;274:120112. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120112. Epub 2023 Apr 25. PMID: 37105338; PMCID: PMC10214866.
Ravindranath O, Calabro FJ, Foran W, Luna B. Pubertal development underlies optimization of inhibitory control through specialization of ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2022 Dec;58:101162. doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101162. Epub 2022 Oct 14. PMID: 36308857; PMCID: PMC9618767.
Perica MI, Calabro FJ, Larsen B, Foran W, Yushmanov VE, Hetherington H, Tervo-Clemmens B, Moon CH, Luna B. Development of frontal GABA and glutamate supports excitation/inhibition balance from adolescence into adulthood. Prog Neurobiol. 2022 Oct 27;219:102370. doi:10.1016/j.pneurobio.2022.102370. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 36309210.
Parr AC, Calabro F, Tervo-Clemmens B, Larsen B, Foran W, Luna B. Contributions of dopamine-related basal ganglia neurophysiology to the developmental effects of incentives on inhibitory control. Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2022 Mar 17;54:101100. doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101100. Epub ahead of print. PMCID: PMC8961188.
Parr AC, Calabro F, Larsen B, Tervo-Clemmens B, Elliot S, Foran W, Olafsson V, Luna B. Dopamine-related striatal neurophysiology is associated with specialization of frontostriatal reward circuitry through adolescence. Prog Neurobiol. 2021 Jun;201:101997. doi:10.1016/j.pneurobio.2021.101997. Epub 2021 Mar 2. PMCID: PMC8096717.
