faculty photo

Geoffrey Karl Aguirre, MD, PhD

Professor of Neurology
Associate Director, Penn Center for Neuroscience and Society
Associate Director of Neurology Residency, Department of Neurology
Department: Neurology

Contact information
Department of Neurology
3400 Spruce Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Office: 215-662-3390
Graduate Group Affiliations
Education:
BA (Politics)
Princeton University, 1992.
PhD (Neuroscience)
University of Pennsylvania, 2000.
MD
University of Pennsylvania, 2001.
Post-Graduate Training
Internship in Medicine, Pennsylvania Hospital, 2001-2002.
Resident in Neurology, University of Pennsylvania, 2002-2004.
Elected Fellow, Optical Society of America, 2018-present.
Certifications
American Board of Neurology, 2005.
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Description of Research Expertise

I study human cortical organization for vision, and how this organization is altered by neurologic and ophthalmologic disease. Human visual cortex is composed of early, “retinotopically” organized visual areas, as well as more specialized, “categorical” areas that process specific visual features (such as facial appearance). My work has varied along two dimensions within this research space: scale and perturbation. I have examined the organization of visual cortex from its large-scale, anatomical arrangement to the precise and subtle form of population neural coding for object features. These studies at different scales of cortical organization have further been conducted both in healthy controls as well as in patients for whom visual function has been perturbed by retinal disease or cerebral dysfunction. I make use of a variety of scientific techniques, although the majority of my research uses BOLD fMRI, which is a non-invasive measure of neural activity in human participants.

Description of Clinical Expertise

My sub-speciality in Behavioral Neurology, and I treat patients with a variety of disturbances of visual perception, thinking and memory.

Description of Other Expertise

Resident Education

I am an Associate Director of the Neurology Residency Program for the University of Pennsylvania. My focus is on the scholarly and research activities of the residents. I direct the "research firm" which is an ongoing educational program covering career development, research methodology, and the responsible conduct of research.

Selected Publications

Kaiser E A, McAdams H, Igdalova A, Haggerty E B, Cucchiara B, Brained D H, Aguirre G K: Reflexive Eye Closure in Response to Cone and Melanopsin Stimulation: A Study of Implicit Measures of Light Sensitivity in Migraine. Neurology September 2021.

Barnett M A, Aguirre G K, Brained D H: A Quadratic Model Captures the Human V1 Response to Variations in Chromatic Direction and Contrast. eLife August 2021.

Workman CI, Humphries S, Hartung F, Aguirre GK, Kable JW, Chatterjee A.: Morality is in the eye of the beholder: the neurocognitive basis of the "anomalous-is-bad" stereotype. Ann N Y Acad Sci. Page: 1-15, February 2021 Notes: Epub ahead of print.

Patterson-Gentile C, Joshi N R, Ciuffreda K J, Arbogast K B, Master C, Aguirre G K: Developmental Effects on Pattern Visual Evoked Potentials Characterized by Principal Component Analysis. Translational Vision Science & Technology 2021 Notes: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.11.420158v1.

Vincent J, Haggerty E B, Brainard D H, Aguirre G K: Melanopic stimulation does not alter psychophysical threshold sensitivity for luminance flicker. Scientific Reports 2021.

Chen M, Nofziger J, Datta R, Gee J C, Morgan J, Aguirre G K: The influence of axial length upon the retinal ganglion cell layer of the human eye. Translational Vision Science & Technology 9(13): 1-14, Dec 2020.

Darwich N F, Phan J M, Kim B, Suh E, Papatriantafyllou J D, Changolkar L, Nguyen A T, O’Rourke C, He Z, Porta S, Gibbons G S, Luk K C, Papageorgiou S G, Grossman M, Massimo L, Irwin D J, McMillan C T, Nasrallah I M, Toro C, Aguirre G K, Van Deerlin V M, Lee E B : Autosomal dominant VCP hypomorph mutation impairs disaggregation of PHF-tau. Science 370(6519): eaay8826, November 2020.

Cieslak M, Cook P, He X, Yeh FC, Dhollander T, Adebimpe A, Aguirre G, Bassett D, Betzel R, Bourque J, Cabral L, Davatzikos C, Detre J, Earl E, Elliott M, Fadnavis S, Fair D, Foran W, Fotiadis P, Garyfallidis E, Giesbrecht B, Gur R, Gur R, Kelz M, Keshavan A, Larsen B, Luna B, Mackey A, Milham M, Oathes D, Perrone A, Pines A, Roalf D, Richie-Halford A, Rokem A, Sydnor V, Tapera T, Tooley U, Vettel J, Yeatman J, Grafton S, Satterthwaite T.: QSIPrep: Robust workflows for preprocessing and reconstructing diffusion MRI. Nature methods. bioRxiv, Sep 2020 Notes: in-press, https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.09.04.282269,

Patterson Gentile C, Aguirre G K: A neural correlate of visual discomfort from flicker. Journal of Vision 20(7): 1-10, Jul 2020.

McAdams H, Kaiser E A, Igdalova A, Haggerty E B, Cucchiara B, Brainard D H, Aguirre G K: Selective amplification of ipRGC signals accounts for interictal photophobia in migraine. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 117(29): 1730-17329, July 2020.

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Last updated: 09/27/2021
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