The basal ganglia operate largely in closed parallel loops, including an associative circuit for goal-directed behavior originating from the dorsomedial striatum (DMS) and a somatosensory circuit important for habit formation originating from the dorsolateral striatum (DLS). An exception to this parallel circuit organization was proposed to explain how information is...
In the United States, those who have lower income, education level, and occupational prestige, are more likely to develop, have worse symptoms of, and die from a wide range of chronic diseases. This phenomenon prompted much research trying to delineate the underlying pathways, and inflammation has been highlighted as a...
Background: The way in which one perceives their visual world (i.e., bottom-up visual perception) and what one pays attention to in their surroundings (i.e., top-down attention), are critical to uncovering underlying thoughts and cognitions, and impact how one operates in the social world. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a...
Visualization is a powerful tool to help people better communicate and understand data. But the perception and interpretation of data is riddled with bias. Data visualizations are ambiguous objects such that different people viewing the same visualization can come to different conclusions. The ambiguity is likely associated with people's perceptual...
Research on how sleep contributes to memory has blossomed in recent years. These studies have generally focused on whether or not sleep impacts various types of memory independently. An open question is whether sleep interactively influences different memory types. My research focuses on two types of memory—specificity and generalization. Whereas...
Though cognitive behavioral techniques are generally effective in the treatment of anxiety disorders, some people fail to benefit from exposure therapy or experience a return of fear after terminating exposure therapy. The burgeoning field of non-invasive brain stimulation provides a potential method of augmenting exposure therapy so that it is...