CIN Faculty

Josh Berke's laboratory at UCSF investigates brain mechanisms involved in learning, motivation and decision-making, and how these mechanisms go awry in disorders such as drug addiction, Parkinson's Disease and Huntington's Disease. (see www.berkelab.org). He is also Director of the Alcohol and Addiction Research Group, and holds the Rudi Schmid Distinguished Professorship in Neurology.

Dr. Edward Chang is a neurosurgeon who treats patients with epilepsy, brain tumors, and cranial nerve nerve compression syndromes such as trigeminal neuralgia and hemifacial spasm. He is Chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery at UCSF.

Dr Chang specializes in advanced brain mapping methods to preserve crucial areas for speech and motor functions in the brain. He also has extensive experience with implantable devices that stimulate specific nerves to relieve seizure, movement, pain and other disorders.

My lab (www.evanfeinberglab.com) aims to understand how sensory input is represented in the brain and transformed into behavioral commands. We study this problem in the superior colliculus (SC), a structure comprising functionally diverse sensory and motor neurons interleaved with fibers from myriad cortical and subcortical areas. This remarkable neuroanatomy poises the SC as an integrative hub, but has also hindered efforts to dissect SC circuitry using classical methods, such as lesions, that offer poor spatial and temporal resolution.

Research Overview

Dr. Adam Gazzaley obtained an M.D. and Ph.D. in Neuroscience at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, completed Neurology residency at the University of Pennsylvania, and postdoctoral training in cognitive neuroscience at University of California, Berkeley. He is currently the David Dolby Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Physiology and Psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco and the Founder & Executive Director of Neuroscape, a translational neuroscience center at UCSF engaged in technology creation and scientific research.

Andrea Hasenstaub, PhD, is an Associate Professor in the Coleman Memorial Laboratories in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (OHNS) at the University of California, San Francisco. She received her BS in Mathematics and Engineering at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California; a M.Phil. in Biological Anthropology from Cambridge University, England; and a PhD in Neurobiology at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, followed by a fellowship at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.

How does the brain produce flexible and effective behavior?

Our lab develops and applies computational, cutting-edge engineering, and experimental approaches to basic and applied neuroscience and build theories of brain function. We also collaborate with other labs to apply our tools to probe brain dysfunction and disease.

Dr. Alexandra Nelson is a neurologist who cares for patients with disorders that affect both movement and cognition, such as Huntington's disease, spinocerebellar ataxia and atypical parkinsonism. She also works closely with her patients' families. She is a member of the clinical and research team at UCSF's Memory and Aging Center and Huntington's Disease Clinic, designated a center of excellence by the Huntington's Disease Society of America.

Christoph E. Schreiner, MD, PhD, is Professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery (OHNS), and Bioengineering&Therapeutic Sciences at the University of California, San Francisco. He received his master degree and PhD degree, both in physics, from the University of Göttingen, Germany. Dr. Schreiner completed a medical degree from the University of Göttingen, and the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany, followed by a neuroscience research fellowship at UCSF.

Dr. Sohal directs a neuroscience laboratory that investigates the brain circuits underlying fundamental aspects of cognition and emotion. His laboratory has made important discoveries about the role of rhythmic patterns of brain activity called gamma oscillations in normal cognition and schizophrenia, and about how other rhythmic patterns of brain activity encode changes in emotional states. Dr. Sohal is also a board-certified psychiatrist who supervises residents in the Early Psychosis (PATH) clinic.