Laura Lewis

The brain dynamically shifts its functional properties from moment to moment, enabling flexible modulation of neural computation depending on the internal state of the brain. For example, switching between different arousal states – such as sleep, wake, attention, and distraction – leads to dramatic changes in neural computation and cognition. How do the brain’s control systems reshape its functional network structure dynamically over time, and what computational role does this network reorganization play in cognition? To answer this question, our research aims to: 1) develop computational and signal processing approaches for neuroimaging data that enable new kinds of analyses of human brain physiology and function at subsecond timescales; and 2) apply these tools to study how neural computation is dynamically modulated across sleep, wake, attentional, and affective states.