Our lab conducts neurophysiology and neuromodulation experiments in humans and non-human animal models. The human studies leverage clinical procedures intended to diagnose and treat disease as an opportunity to learn about the basic functions of the human brain, how particular behavioral and cognitive functions are altered by neurological and psychiatric disease, and how we might better treat these diseases by applying basic neuroscience knowledge to understand pathological signals and to improve neuromodulation. Parallel animal work allows us to investigate particular functions in greater detail, and to test novel ideas for translational applications.
Human Neurophysiology. Intracranial neurophysiology is routinely acquired for seizure mapping, yielding dozens to hundreds of signals across different brain regions. We undertake cognitive neuroscience experiments to probe the mechanisms of attention, memory, affective states, and action planning using neural recordings and electrical stimulation.
Human Neuromodulation. Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) offers an opportunity to study single neuron activity and local field potentials from the basal ganglia and thalamus intraoperatively, as well as the ability to study neural signals and the real-time effects of neuromodulation in the outpatient setting. We seek to understand how these subcortical circuits mediate movement and motivated behavior and to advance neuromodulation for disorders such as Parkinson’s Disease, Essential Tremor, and OCD.
Human Circuit Modification. Precise neurosurgical lesions created through MRI-guided laser ablation or focused ultrasound are used to treat epilepsy, movement disorders, and intractable psychiatric disease. We explore the effects and underlying mechanisms of these circuit manipulations using carefully-designed, rigorous psychophysical experiments.
NHP Neurophysiology. Animal models offer an indispensable window onto brain function, allowing a more directed, higher bandwidth, and finer-scaled investigation into the principles of neural circuit computation. We study the development of cognitive models, credit assignment & causal inference in the prefrontal cortex (PFC). The PFC is a critical node in the brain networks that integrate world models and affective states to plan actions and adjust behavior based upon feedback, and this region is central in a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders. We believe this level of mechanistic insight is necessary to develop more effective neural circuit interventions.
Artificial Intelligence in Medicine. We have implemented a platform for facilitating the application of modern analytic tools to complex, multi-modal healthcare data, specifically in the domain of the applied neurosciences (Neurology, Psychiatry & Neurosurgery). With our collaborator & technical lead, Shane Lee, we are working to develop tools to allow more efficient and fluid identification of research cohorts and for interacting with those data using cutting-edge AI/ML techniques.