Avniel Singh Ghuman, PhD
Director of MEG Research
Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh
Phone: (412) 648-0077
e-mail: ghumana@upmc.edu
Specialized Areas of Interest
The dynamics of brain interactions; autism; visual cognition; magnetoencephalography (MEG).
Biography
As Director of MEG Research, one of Dr. Ghuman’s primary roles is to facilitate, develop, and advance clinical and basic neuroscience research using MEG. To this end, he is helping to develop new research applications for MEG in collaboration with researchers throughout the community. MEG is the most powerful functional neuroimaging technique for noninvasively recording magnetic fields generated by electrophysiological brain activity, providing millisecond temporal resolution and adequate spatial resolution of neural events.
In addition, Dr. Ghuman’s research interest focuses on using MEG to understand the dynamics of how brain regions interact with an eye towards determining the biological and biophysical underpinnings of these dynamics. He also examines how abnormalities in these dynamics are manifested in autism spectrum disorders and how they might relate to the cognitive impairments in these disorders. Finally, he studies the neural and cognitive processes involved in high-level visual perception.
Dr. Ghuman received his undergraduate education in math and physics at The Johns Hopkins University. He completed his doctoral education in biophysics at Harvard University. He completed his postdoctoral training at the National Institute of Mental Health prior to joining the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh.