BBQ ProSeminar: September 9, 2022

Dr. Arian Ashourvan, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Kansas

In this talk, I will review some of my past and ongoing research using a wide range of experimental and modeling methods, including probabilistic and deterministic approaches, to interrogate activation patterns and test how they are constrained by network topology or external inputs. I will show how the probabilistic models (e.g., pairwise maximum entropy model) allow us to uncover the landscape and attractors of brain dynamics to predict the activation patterns and explain the white matter structure's role in shaping these emergent patterns. I will also demonstrate how the dynamical systems framework can be fruitfully leveraged to control pathological activity and identify the unknown exogenous drivers of the observed dynamics, including the large-scale brain activity and the multi-day rhythms in seizure risk. I'll end by presenting some budding collaborations/projects here at KU and KUMC.