Project Description

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RESEARCH AREAS:

  • Philosophy of Neuroscience

  • Philosophy of Mind

  • Philosophy of Science

CONTACT:

JACQUELINE SULLIVAN

Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy, Western University

Dr. Sullivan is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Philosophy, Core Faculty Member of the Rotman Institute of Philosophy and an Associate Member of the Western Institute for Neuroscience. She has a PhD in HPS (2007) and a MS in Neuroscience (2003) from the University of Pittsburgh.

While an MS student in neuroscience, I worked in a cognitive neurobiology laboratory and ran in vivo electrophysiology and biochemical experiments to investigate the role of a protein kinase (extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK)) in LTP in the rodent hippocampus. This experience sparked my interest in experiments and in philosophy of science in practice, and my published work from 2008-present treats of a number of foundational issues concerning experimental practice in neuroscience with a particular focus on the neurosciences of cognition and those areas of neuroscience that investigate cognitive impairments that accompany mental illness and neurodegenerative disease. More recently, I am doing mixed-methods philosophy of neuroscience combining traditional analyses of historical and contemporary case studies, with collaborative work with translational cognitive neuroscientists, and qualitative methods including autoethnography, standard ethnography, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and comparative qualitative analyses of multiple large-scale transdiciplinary research collaborations.

Arnaud, Sarah, Sullivan, Jacqueline, MacKinnon, Amy, Boddell, Lindsay. (Forthcoming) “Teasing Apart the Roles of Interoception, Emotion, and Self-Control in Anorexia Nervosa”, Review of Philosophy and Psychology special issue on The Anorexia Enigma.

(Forthcoming) w/Jaipreet Mattu, “Serotonergic psychedelics in translational research: Addressing epistemic challenges from bench to bedside” Philosophical Perspectives on the Psychedelic Renaissance, Chris Letheby and Philip Gerrans, eds. OUP.

(Forthcoming) Who’s in and Who’s Out of the Cognitive Kinding Game? Commentary on Muhammad Ali Khalidi’s Cognitive Ontology: Taxonomic Practices in the Mind -Brain Sciences. Mind & Language.

(2022) Novel Tool Development and the Dynamics of Control: The Rodent Touchscreen Operant Chamber as a Case Study. Philosophy of Science.

(2022) The Concept of Practice Frameworks in Correctional Psychology: A Critical Appraisal. Aggression and Violent Behavior.

(2021) Understanding Stability in Cognitive Neuroscience Through Hacking’s Lens. Philosophical Inquiries IX, 1: 189-208.

(2021). Jacqueline A. Sullivan, Julie R. Dumont, Sara Memar, Miguel Skirzewski, Jinxia Wan, Maryam H. Mofrad, Hassam Zafar Ansari, Yulong Li, Lyle Muller, Vania F. Prado, Marco A.M. Prado, Lisa M. Saksida, Timothy J. Bussey. New Frontiers in Translational Research: Touchscreens, Open Science, and The Mouse Translational Research Accelerator Platform (MouseTRAP). Genes, Brain and Behavior.

(2017) Coordinated Pluralism as a Means to Facilitate Integrative Taxonomies of Cognition. Philosophical Explorations Issue 2: 129-145.

(2016) Construct Stabilization and the Unity of the Mind-Brain Sciences. Philosophy of Science 83: 662-673.

(2016) Response to Commentary on Stabilizing constructs through collaboration across different research fields as a way to foster the integrative approach of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Project. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

(2016) Stabilizing constructs through collaboration across different research fields as a way to foster the integrative approach of the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) Project. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
Please check links to Google Scholar and PhilPaper profiles for a complete list of publications.

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