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MRRI Staff Scientists
Laurel J. Buxbaum, Psy.D.
Research Scientist, Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute; Director of Cognition and Action Lab; Co-Director of Complex Action
Analysis Lab; Research Associate Professor, Thomas Jefferson University School of Medicine
My interest in neuropsychology dates back to elementary school, when I read
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, a novel about the hallucinatory inner world of a schizophrenic teenager. This interest began to coalesce in my undergraduate
training in the biological bases of behavior at the University of Pennsylvania and in graduate school at Hahnemann University,
where I earned a Doctorate in Psychology. It wasn’t until several years after graduate school, however, while I was working
as a clinical neuropsychologist, that I was fortunate to be surrounded by a number of top-notch researchers at MossRehab,
and it was here that my interest in cognitive neuroscience research crystallized. Since then, I’ve done a postdoctoral fellowship
in cognitive neuroscience research at the University of Pennsylvania and Moss, and have continued my research career at Moss
Rehabilitation Research Institute. In 1998 and 1999 I was an invited visiting scientist at the
Institut des Sciences Cognitives in Lyon, France where I collaborated on a study of apraxia, a disorder of skilled movement.
Research Focus
To use a tool or other manipulable object appropriately, the brain must integrate information about the object’s identity
and function (e.g., is it a hammer? What is a hammer for?), the way the object is manipulated (how do I move this hammer?),
and the way it is grasped based on its current position and the position of the body (how do I pick it up given where it is
and where I am?). When using multiple objects in the service of a larger task (e.g., hammering in a nail as a step in building
a dog-house), this information must be integrated with function, gestural, and spatal information about other objects, higher-level
information about the task plan and goals, and the appropriate sequence of steps, with a good dose of attention thrown in
to keep it all running smoothly. In the Cognition and Action Lab and Complex Action Analysis Lab, we are studying skilled
tool use and other manipulable actions, both simple and multi-step, with several questions in mind, some applied and rehabilitation-oriented,
and others more fundamental. A second focus in our lab is the study of spatial attention and neglect. We are pursuing work
to address these and other questions:
- What is the nature and format of representations mediating learned skilled gestures for tool use? How does the gesture memory
system differ from the semantic and procedural memory systems? In the Cognition and Action Lab (
Photo 1,
Photo 2), we address these questions with a combination of behavioral studies with healthy adults, patients with brain damage, and
functional neuroimaging (fMRI) work in collaboration with researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, including
Branch Coslett.
- How does skilled tool-use system differ from systems controlling reaching to and grasping objects based on their shape and
location? Are feed-forward and feed-back mechanisms differentially involved in the two types of actions? What brain regions
mediate them? A combination of behavioral studies, some in collaboration with
Scott Johnson-Frey, and fMRI work is being used to address these questions.
- What is the relationship of deficits in pantomiming and recognizing the use of single tools (ideomotor apraxia), and errors
of action on complex naturalistic tasks (ideational apraxia)? We developed the
Naturalistic Action Test (NAT) to assist in the diagnosis and measurement of naturalistic action impairment. In the Complex Action Analysis lab (
Photo 3,
Photo 4 ),
Myrna Schwartz and I are continuing to explore the causes and consequences of such impairment.
Funding Sources
Dr. Buxbaum has received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the National Institute of Neurological
Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research (NCMRR), the Department of Education
through the National Institute for Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR), and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.
She has also received grants from the Albert Einstein Healthcare Network's Albert Einstein Society
Lab Members
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Steve Jax, Post-Doctoral Fellow
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Laura Barde, Research Associate
- Ellen Rosenberg, Clinical-Research Fellow
- Kathleen Kyle, Research Assistant
- Kathryn Cross, Research Assistant
Susan Lipsett, Research Assistant
Adrienne Moll, Research Assistant
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(Back row, from Left):
Katie Kyle, Susan Lipsett, Adie Moll, Branch Coslett. (Front row, from Left): Laura Barde, Laurel Buxbaum, Steve Jax.
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Selected Recent Publications
- Buxbaum, LJ. “Ideomotor apraxia: A call to action.” (Invited Review).
Neurocase, 7, 445-58, 2001.
- Buxbaum, LJ, Permaul, P. “Hand-centered attentional and motor asymmetries in unilateral neglect.”
Neuropsychologia, 39, 653-664, 2001.
- Buxbaum, LJ., Coslett, HB. “Spatio-Motor Aspects of Action.” In B. Rapp (Ed.),
The Handbook of Cognitive Neuropsychology. 543-563. Philadelphia: Psychology Press, 2001.
- Buxbaum LJ, Saffran EM. “The semantics of object manipulation and object function: A double dissociation.”
Brain and Language. 82, 179-199, 2002
- Buxbaum, LJ, Sirigu, A, Schwartz, MF, Klatzky, R. “Cognitive representations of hand posture in ideomotor apraxia.”
Neuropsychologia, 41, 1091-1113, 2003.
- Buxbaum, LJ, Ferraro, MK, Veramonti, T, Farne, A, Whyte, J, Ladavas, E, Frassinetti, F, Coslett, HB. “Hemispatial neglect:
subtypes, neuroanatomy, and disability.”
Neurology, 62, 749-765, 2004.
- Buxbaum, LJ, Johnson-Frey, SH, Bartlett-Williams M. “Deficient internal models for planning hand-object interactions in ideomotor
apraxia.”
Neuropsychologia, In Press. (
PDF)
- Boronat, C., Buxbaum, LJ, Coslett, HB, Tang, K, Saffran, EM, Kimberg, DY, Detre, JA. “Distinctions between function and manipulation
knowledge of objects: Evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging.”
Cognitive Brain Research, In Press. (
PDF)
- Buxbaum, LJ, Kyle, KM, Menon, R. “On beyond mirror neurons: Internal representations subserving imitation and recognition
of skilled object-related actions in humans.” Submitted. (
PDF)
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