![]() ![]() We use rodent models (in vivo and brain slice preparations patch clamp and multi-channel electrophysiological recordings calcium imaging) as well as human subjects (intracranial electrophysiological recordings from neurosurgical patients structural and functional MRI computational models) to explore the effect of anesthetic agents on signal processing (auditory, visual) and connectivity (single cell network) and relate those effects to changes in arousal. ![]() Rather, anesthetics disrupt the integrative processes of the brain through a complex set of molecular, cellular, circuit and global effects. We have shown that anesthetics do not just turn the brain off, nor are changes in information content of brain activity related simply to changes in arousal state. Despite being in widespread use since the mid-19th century and administered to 20 million patients annually in the US alone, how anesthetics cause loss of consciousness remains one of the great open problems in biomedical science. ![]() Our areas of interest include mechanisms of loss and recovery of consciousness under anesthesia, the overlap of these mechanisms with changes in arousal during natural sleep, the link between inflammation and brain function during delirium, and the mechanisms whereby psychedelics ameliorate psychiatric disorders (depression, substance use disorder). We study this question in human subjects and rodent models using behavioral assays as well as imaging and electrophysiological measurements focused primarily in neocortex and thalamus. Research in my lab centers on how changes in brain activity and connectivity result in changes in consciousness. ![]()
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