Alex Terrazas, Ph.D., President and Chief Scientist

Dr. Terrazas is at the forefront of the integration of mind, brain, and technology and holds a Ph.D. in Cognition and Neural Systems from the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona. He is known for experiments in which he recorded neural activity in rats as they drove around real and virtual reality environments in a small car. He is a former Fellow of the National Institutes of Mental Health where he conducted experiments in humans using virtual reality and functional magnetic resonance imaging. He is the 1997 recipient of the Proctor and Gamble Professional Opportunity Award and the American Psychological Association Fellowship in Neuroscience.

In addition to his scientific leadership, Dr. Terrazas adds considerable expertise in hardware and software R&D. He is the former Associate Director of the Machine Interface Network Design Laboratory at Michigan State University where he oversaw R&D efforts in robotics, virtual reality and image analysis. Dr. Terrazas is the author of the book Java Media API's: Cross-platform Imaging, Media and Visualization (SAMS/Pearson Press, ISBN: 0-672-32094-0).

Select Publications

Terrazas A, Krause M, Lipa P, Gothard KM, Barnes CA, McNaughton BL. (2005). Self-motion and the hippocampal spatial metric. Journal of Neuroscience. 2005 Aug 31;25(35):8085-96

Terrazas, A. & McNaughton, B.L. (2000). Brain Growth and the Cognitive Map. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 97(9): 4414-4416.

Weikert, T.W., Terrazas, A., Bigelow. L.B., Malley, J.D., Hyde, T., Egan, M.F., Weinberger, D.R., and Goldberg, T.E. (2002). Habit and Skill Learning in Schizophrenia: Evidence of Normal Striatal Processing With Abnormal Cortical Input. Learning and Memory, 9: 430-442.

Reddy, C.K.. & Terrazas, A. (2003) A Novel Bayesian and Information Theorectic Approach to fMRI Data Analysis. International Society Optical Engineering, Medical Imaging 2003, 5031-5038.

Invited Talks

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigations of Human-Robot Interactions. Pfizer Internet2 Symposium, 2002.

All Aboard! What Train-Driving Rats Can Tell Us about the Neural Mechanisms of Spatial Navigation. National Institutes of Mental Health Clincial Brian Disorders Branch, 2000.