Event Date
LAURA LEWIS, PH.D.
Athinoula A. Martinos Associate Professor
Institute for Medical Engineering and Science
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
MIT
Host: Audrey Fan, PhD, apfan@ucdavis.edu
UPDATE: The speaker's flights have been cancelled due to winter storms. Dr. Lewis will present by Zoom (same time). The talk will be projected in Kemper 1003 and will not be recorded.
This is an in-person event. Please register here: https://tinyurl.com/Neuroeng-Jan24
Registration for remote attendance is limited to colleagues from the Sacramento campus and those working remotely: https://tinyurl.com/NeuroengJan24
Abstract
When we fall asleep, most aspects of brain function and physiology are quickly transformed, and this process is essential for neurological health. Understanding the neural basis of sleep requires imaging methods that can capture multiple aspects of brain physiology at fast timescales. We develop new approaches for analyzing human brain physiology using multimodal neuroimaging, and apply them to investigate the neural origins and consequences of sleep. We found that accelerated methods for fMRI can enable imaging subsecond neural dynamics throughout the human brain. We applied these methods to investigate the neural dynamics that occur at state transitions, and identified temporal dynamics within thalamocortical networks that precede the moment of awakening from sleep. In addition, we developed a method to image cerebrospinal fluid flow, and discovered large waves of fluid flow that appear in the sleeping human brain. Together, these studies highlight the new biological information that can be extracted from fast fMRI data, and use this approach to discover neurophysiological dynamics unique to the sleeping brain.
Bio
Laura Lewis is the Athinoula A. Martinos Associate Professor at MIT, in the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She completed her Ph.D. in Neuroscience and conducted postdoctoral work in neuroimaging, at the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Society of Fellows at Harvard University. Her research develops multimodal approaches for imaging the human brain, and applies them to study the neural circuitry that controls sleep, and the consequences of sleep for brain function. Her work has shown that fast fMRI can measure subsecond neural dynamics, and discovered waves of cerebrospinal fluid flow that appear in the sleeping human brain. Her research has been recognized by awards such as the Peter and Patricia Gruber International Research Award, the Sloan Fellowship, the McKnight Scholar Award, and the Pew Scholar Award.