Jenni Nagode

   

Background:

        I am currently in the Graduate Program in Neuroscience completing my M.D./Ph.D. degree at the University of Minnesota.  I received my B.A. degree in Psychobiology and Philosophy at Wellesley College in 1980.  My honors thesis, with Dr. Howard Eichenbaum, characterized single cell recordings in the rat hippocampus during an olfactory memory task.   After college I worked as a research assistant in the neuropsychology laboratory of Dr. Nelson Butters at the Boston V.A. Hospital comparing memory function of Alzheimer, Korsakoff, and Huntington patients.  From 1981 to 1994, I stayed at home in Colorado raising my two children (Melanie, born 1983, and Paul, born 1986) under a pre-nuptial agreement with my husband.  During that time, I earned an M.A. degree in Psychology from the University of Colorado.  My thesis work, with Dr. Hasker Davis, studied the neuroprotective effects in the hippocampus of MK-801 and glucose using an ibotenic acid model of epilepsy in the rat.

Current work:

        My thesis work in the Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit, under the supervision of Dr. José Pardo, focuses on refining our understanding of human hippocampal function in memory, and distinguishing its function from that of the parahippocampal and fusiform gyri. We pursue this goal from two main perspectives: correlation studies of hippocampal rCBF with recognition memory performance using pictorial and verbal stimuli, and hippocampal rCBF during transitive inference studies of memory.

Publications:

Butters, N., Albert, M.S., Sax, D.S., Miliotis, P., Nagode, J. & Sterste, A. (1983). The effect of verbal elaborators on the pictorial memory of brain-damaged patients. Neuropsychologia, 21: 307-323.

Eichenbaum, H., Kuperstein, M., Fagan, A., & Nagode, J. (1987). Cue-sampling and goal-approach correlates of hippocampal unit activity in rats performing an odor-discrimination task. The Journal of Neuroscience, 7(3): 716-732.

 Posters: Dassonville, P. & Nagode, J. (1995). Tactile localization during discrete and continuous movements of different speeds. Soc. Neurosci. Abstr. 755.9. Poster presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.

Glode, M.S., Daum, R.S., Phillips, J., Syriopoulou, D.A., & Smith, A.L. (1978). Effect of natural maternal E.Coli K1 colonization on susceptibility of pups to disease. Poster presented at the ASM annual meeting.

Nagode, J., Coleman, K. & Davis, H.P. (1988). Brain fuels attenuate the morphologic and functional deficits in an animal model of epilepsy. Poster presented at the Colorado Psychological Association annual meeting.

Nagode, J.C., & Dassonville, P. (1995). Effects of movement velocity on the perceived location of the hand in space during a tactile localization task. Poster presented at the American Federation for Clinical Research annual meeting.

Nagode, J.C. & Pardo, J.V. (1998). Parahippocampal activation during a complex visual memory task. J. Cog. Neurosci. Supplement: 121. Poster presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience annual meeting.

Nagode, J.C. & Pardo, J.V. (1998). Activation of parahippocampus but not hippocampus during encoding and retrieval of scenery. Soc. Neurosci. Abstr. 24(1): 266.12. Poster presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.

Nagode, J.C. & Pardo, J.V. (1998). A complex visual memory task activates parahippocampal but not hippocampal areas. Neuroimage, 7(4):S848. Poster presented at the Human Brain Mapping annual meeting.

Nagode, J.C. & Pardo, J.V. (1999). Functional neuroanatomy of the nonverbal transitive inference probe phase. Soc. Neurosci. Abstr. 25(1): 46.11. Poster presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.

Phillips, J., Eichenbaum, H. & Kuperstein, M. (1980). Hippocampal unit activity related to sensory, motor and EEG events during odor-discrimination learning. Soc. Neurosci. Abstr. 6:148.8. Poster presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.