Talk Title: “An Oscillator Model of Gamma-Band Resonance in the Auditory System in Schizophrenia”
Abstract:
Bio: Kevin M. Spencer, Ph.D., is a Research Health Scientist at the VA Boston Healthcare System and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He has extensive experience in conducting EEG research with measures of oscillatory brain dynamics and event-related brain potentials (ERPs). His major interests are to understand how particular neural circuits are related to cognitive functions, and how dysfunction in these circuits is related to imparied perception and cognition in neuropsychiatric disorders. This work has involved studies of sensory processing, plasticity, attention, and executive control with ERPs and oscillation measures in healthy individuals and in persons with brain disorders, particularly schizophrenia. These studies have utilized methodological approaches such as multivariate decomposition, spectral analysis, and source localization. He also uses computational modeling to test hypotheses regarding neural circuitry and the generation of oscillations and ERPs. The major goal of his current work is to identify EEG-based biomarkers of neural circuits involved in particular perceptual and cognitive operations, using data from humans, animals, and computational models.