Cognitive neuroscience

My research interests are broadly focused on understanding how and why we store and retrieve memories. The clinical and cognitive neuroscience research conducted in my laboratory combines neuropsychological, cognitive, social psychological, and neuroimaging approaches. An emphasis of my current research is autobiographical memory, which refers to memories of personal experiences. Ongoing projects are investigating how autobiographical memory is affected in several populations, including older adults at risk for Alzheimer’s disease and individuals with acquired brain injury. We also are interested in understanding how changes to autobiographical memory impact other aspects of cognition, and we seek to develop new interventions to improve autobiographical memory and everyday functioning.

My research examines neural factors which affect language functions, and how these change across life-span and are influenced by stroke, brain injury and neurodegenerative disorders. In my work, I use combination of cognitive measures and multimodal neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, EEG/ERPs, MEG). I am also interested in recovery of function, and treatment approaches involving speech-language therapy in combination with noninvasive brain stimulation techniques.

I analyze MRI images to understand more about how human language works. We use functional MRI to determine which brain regions are involved in different language tasks. We also look at diffusion MRI to learn about the quality of the wiring between regions.

The Wohlgemuth Lab is focused on how circuits in the brain contribute to sensory-guided adaptive behaviors. The goal is to study how an integrated bottom-up and top-down cortico-fugal network controls behavior on multiple time-scales: from the rapid reactions to arriving sensing information indicative of bottom-up processing, to the longer time-scale governance of categorical behavioral control that is directed by top-down signaling. To study these phenomena, the lab uses the model system of the echolocating bat. The bat provides a way to study how the brain evolved to perform under controlled, laboratory experimentation. To research these questions, the lab employs computer modeling of behavior, multi-channel electrophysiology to relate changes in behavior to changes in brain activity, and optogenetics to test causal hypotheses about the role of different circuit components in sensorimotor integration across time-scales. By combining computational ethology and modeling, electrophysiology, calcium imaging, and optogenetics, the Wohlgemuth Lab offers new insights into circuit-level processing for both rapid control of sensory-guided adaptive behaviors and long-term goal-planning.