In the Dynamic and Naturalistic Cognitive Neuroscience laboratory, we investigate the dynamics of brain function over different timescales. On the timescale of the lifespan we explore how brain function dynamically reorganizes with age and with declines in brain structure. We also ask what mechanisms allow older adults to keep functioning well in daily life.
On the timescale of our daily life experiences (seconds to minutes) we investigate how the brain segments and integrates information over time into meaningful events and neural states, where neural states are temporally stable patterns of neural activity. Across the cortical hierarchy, regions segment information at different temporal scales. We investigate the properties of this segmentation mechanism; how it relates to our experience of temporal events, how it is shaped by attention and drives memory encoding and how it relates to the information that is represented in specific brain regions.
To study these questions we use and develop cutting-edge techniques for measuring brain function, such as data-driven methods for neural state segmentation and more robust functional connectivity metrics. An important feature of our research is that we use naturalistic stimuli, such as movies and auditory narratives that allow us to study brain function in contexts similar to our daily life experiences. Our group is committed to creating a safe, open and inclusive research environment with a healthy balance between life and work.