Harvard Catalyst Profiles

I am a cognitive neuroscientist / neurophysiologist with the goal to better understand the healthy human brain and to diagnose and treat neurological and psychiatric disorders. To this aim, I use multimodal combinations of several noninvasive and safe techniques that reveal different aspects of brain function and structure (TMS-MEG-EEG-fMRI-MRI-DSI-behavioral measurements).

I am particularly interested in neuronal implementation of sensory-perceptual and cognitive functions and how these go askew in clinical disorders. Specifically, I am mapping neuronal activation trace lifetimes in health and in schizophrenia, depression, and ADHD, and studying how their abnormalities may cause symptoms. I am also investigating new biomarkers for depression, and examining basic mechanisms and potential TMS treatments of PTSD and anxiety. Another longstanding, physiologically more basic, interest of mine lies in how large-scale integration over multiple human brain systems occurs (multisensory and sensorimotor integration) and how learning influences it.

To reach the above goals I also develop novel techniques. Much of my present methodological work focuses on utilizing electromagnetic modeling to improve TMS navigation such that its accuracy and therapeutic efficacy could be improved. I am also involved in developing methods for modeling dynamic interactions between areas (spatiotemporally accurate Granger causality) and constructing new types of TMS multichannel arrays.

I am the TMS Core Director at the MGH/MIT/HMS Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging.