Research

Our research focuses on both the methodological development of multimodal brain imaging, and the application of these methods to study the spatiotemporal dynamics of the brain in various cognitive processes. Specifically, we examine the memory and attention processes involved in detecting changes in environmental stimulation (i.e., deviance or change detection), and the neural substrates underlying those processes. Stimulus deviance ranges from simple physical anomalies (e.g., tone change) to violation of abstract rules (e.g., syntactic violations) and, in conjunction with appropriate brain imaging techniques, can be used as a tool to investigate how the brain processes information across the continuum of complexity from simple stimulus perception to language comprehension. In order to investigate the interactions between different brain regions across time, we apply multimodal imaging methods, where we use an optical brain imaging method, the event-related optical signals (EROS), primarily, and combine it with electroencephalography (EEG), functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), functional near-infra red spectroscopy (fNIRS), or transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) where suitable.

Cognitive neuroscience: brain dynamics in pre-attentive change detection, cognitive aging, autism, and language processes.

Brain imaging methods: multimodal imaging methods, optical brain imaging, and functional connectivity.

Our lab uses the following tools: