Our lab is affiliated with the Seton Brain and Spine Institute, the NeuroTexas Institute and the Department of Psychology of the University of Texas at Austin. We are committed to study the normal mechanisms and diseases of information processing in the human brain. Our research philosophy is based on the assumption that a fundamental principle of neural communication is the synergy between brain rhythms and action potentials. Oscillations in the brain generate propagating waves that enforce neurons to “listen” their inputs at specific times and ignore them another times. Therefore, major brain rhythms are instrumental in orchestrating complex functions by synchronization and desynchronization of information flow at the level of individual neurons. Any structural damage will likely cause a disruption of the delicate scheduling logic, which leads to hyper-synchrony, a key electrographic signature a number of neurological disorders share, including epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. Studying these diseases will help us understanding not only the mechanisms of this disorders, but also elucidates how the normal brain works.
This philosophy is the driving force behind our various ongoing projects: