Princeton Neuroscience Institute

My research focuses on developing new methods to assess both shared and idiosyncratic aspects of the cortical response time courses across individuals. These methods measure the reliability of cortical activity, within or between subjects, in response to naturalistic stimulation (e.g., free viewing of movies). Despite the seemingly uncontrolled task, some of these complex stimuli evoke highly reliable and selective responses in many brain areas, including some brain regions that often do not show much response modulation with conventional experimental protocols. What are the factors that can account for the emergence of such shared responses? Can we dissociate between neuronal processes which are shared by all people, those which are unique to a given sub-group, and those which are idiosyncratic to an individual? Moreover, can we use such shared responses for communication with other people?