Neuro-CoE Seminar Series

Changes in our sensory environment that are relevant to survival or to ongoing, goal-directed behavior evoke brain-wide activity that drives a response, re-orientation or adaptation. Which brain regions or circuits are recruited in this process is likely dependent on the situation, with contexts ranging from rapid fight-or-flight responses to a physical threat, to small adjustments in ones' learning rate following a task-related expectation violation.

In this talk, Dr. Joshi will (1) review the putative role of neuromodulatory systems in signaling salience, (2) describe attempts at evaluating the effectiveness of non-invasive measures including pupillometry in tracking responses to salient stimuli, and (3) present (very) preliminary results from an ongoing study to determine whether general and pain salience are encoded in the same or distinct circuits.

About the Speaker

 I graduated with a BSc (Phsyics, with honors) from Delhi University and a PhD in Neuroscience from NYU (advisor: Michael Hawken). For my graduate work, I developed a technique to record from and stain neurons in vivo in macaque visual cortex and explored contextual modulation of visual cortical neurons. I completed postdoctoral training at UPenn (advisor: Joshua I Gold). There, I made measurements in awake-behaving macaque cortex and brainstem to determine the relationship between neural activity and pupil size, and explored the relationship between locus coeruleus activity, pupil size, cortical coordinated activity and adaptive behavior. I devoted a few years to the tenure-track job search (that didn't get too far) but lucked out in always finding research that I enjoy doing. I'm very excited about my current efforts with an incredible group (led by Ashwin Ramayya) at Stanford Neurosurgery. Here, I have the opportunity to obtain intracranial recordings from patients in the epilepsy monitoring unit. I use simple tasks with auditory and thermal stimuli to assess neural responses to salience, with the ultimate aim of improving diagnostic methods for chronic pain and optimizing targeting of stimulation-based therapies.