Clayton Curtis

Neural synchronization of human frontoparietal cortex

Neural activity persists during the maintenance of working memory (WM) representations and is thought to integrate perception and action over time and across brain areas through the coordination of multiple neural systems. Yet, there is a fundamental gap in understanding the neural mechanisms by which WM coordinates large-scale brain networks. This gap in knowledge is a critical problem because a host of psychiatric and neurologic disorders stem from a primary WM dysfunction. The long term goal of our work is to understand the mechanisms by which high-level cognition emerges through the temporal integration of sensory and motor functions across the cortex. Our current work tests models of how synchronization of neuronal oscillations may provide a neural mechanisms from structuring recurrent interactions between different nodes in neural networks that support cognition. We test these models using intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG) recordings from the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices of human patients with pharmacologically intractable epilepsy.

Lab Members: Clayton Curtis, Ph.D. (PI), Sangita Dandekar, Ph.D. (Post doctoral fellow), Drew Fegen, MD., Ph.D. (Post doctoral fellow)

Funding: R03MH097206 National Institute of Mental Health (NIH)

Publications: http://clayspace.psych.nyu.edu/publications