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Geoffrey K. Aguirre, M.D., Ph.D.

Asst Professor
Department of Neurology Center for Cognitive Neuroscience
3 West Gates
(215)662-2700
email:aguirreg@mail.med.upenn.edu

Click here for selected publications since Dr. Aguirre’s arrival at Penn

RESEARCH INTERESTS

RESEARCH TECHNIQUES

RESEARCH SUMMARY

My work falls within the broad categories of cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neurology. My lab investigates the neural basis and recovery of higher-level visual function. The primary technique I use is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), although individual projects also employ behavioral, animal, or patient based research.

Ongoing projects include:
1) Neural information processing during face discrimination ­ A behavioral signature of face perception is “holistic” visual processing, in which the whole is greater than the sum of the features. This notion can be operationalized in terms of mathematical psychology models. My studies apply these formal mathematical models to neuroimaging data to allow inferences regarding the information processing that underlies object recognition. For example, the role of inter-regional connectivity in parallel processing of facial features can be described.

2) Characterizing neural “face space” ­ Psychology studies suggest that facial identity is represented within a “face space”, with each individual anchoring a point within a multi-dimensional feature space and the average face at the center. These behavioral models explain idiosyncratic properties of face perception (e.g., effects of typicality, race and caricature), but their neural basis is not known. Using fMRI-adaptation methods, my experiments characterize neural “face space” and test ideas about the adaptability of neural representations to changing stimulus environments.

3) fMRI of recovered cortical vision in gene therapy of canine Leber's Congenital Amaurosis ­ Dogs with an RPE65 mutation, with resulting blindness from retinal degeneration, demonstrate recovery of visual function following gene therapy. Unknown is the extent to which cortical (as opposed to sub-cortical) function mediates the recovered visual behavior seen in the treated animal. This, and a series of related questions, are being addressed with fMRI studies performed upon sedated dogs before and after gene therapy and recovery of visual function.

4) Procedural and perceptual learning studied with perfusion fMRI ­ Some knowledge is acquired slowly over a period of hours or days. The neural basis of such learning has been difficult to study because of technical limitations of fMRI methods. My lab, in collaboration with Dr. John Detre, has developed perfusion fMRI as a method to study slow changes in neural activity. We are beginning studies of slow sequence learning, to be followed by studies of the neural modularity of visual perceptual learning. We hope to further investigate the role of sleep in consolidation of perceptual learning.

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