Seminar by Dr. Benjamin Rowland, Wake Forest School of Medicine.
The brain has the remarkable ability to integrate information across its multiple sensory modalities, despite the fact that each transduces a very different form of energy (e.g., photons vs. sound waves). My research focuses on understanding all aspects of this capability: how it functions in the adult, how it develops and changes based on experience, and how it can be exploited to rehabilitate neurological disorders. To this end, my laboratory combines behavioral and physiological methods with advanced computational techniques for analysis and modeling using a variety of model species. Current research topics include studying how the brain decides (and comes to decide) which cross-modal signals to integrate and which to segregate, and how these intrinsic capabilities can be used to retrain circuits outside of traditional visual pathways to restore sight in individuals that have been blinded by stroke or injury.
