> Urs Ribary named to Leadership Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience
Urs Ribary named to Leadership Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience
November 23, 2007
Urs Ribary has joined SFU as the Leadership Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience in Childhood Health and Development.
Previously the Director of the Center for Neuromagnetism at New York University Medical Center, Dr. Ribary will create provincial, national and international research networks aimed at creating new techniques for understanding the structure, function and internal communications within the brain.
This information will potentially lead to new behaviour modification, drug and surgical treatments for a wide variety of cognitive disabilities and neurological and psychiatric illnesses.
Dr. Ribary will be based at SFU’s Burnaby campus but will spend part of his time down the hill at the Down Syndrome Research Foundation, where he will have access to Western Canada’s only magnetoencephalography system (MEG).
He will also collaborate with the Child and Family Research Institute at B.C.’s Children Hospital and at UBC. The state-of-the-art MEG brain imaging device provides precise information about the location and time of brain function relating to diagnostic purposes for Down Syndrome and various brain disorders.
His own research focuses on imaging and understanding the synchronization of different brain areas. “All areas of the brain can be intact,” he says, “but if the timing of communications between different areas of the brain is off by just a small amount, you will see impairment.”
Because it is possible to distinguish between healthy subjects and those with learning disabilities based on as low as 5/1000 of a second (5msec) brain communication processing, Ribary says it’s important to better understand and quantify these brain dynamics.
A first step in his research program is to coordinate interdisciplinary teams of researchers who will integrate the latest multimodal signal processing technologies into brain imaging research. This will connect neurobiologists, psychologists, medical practitioners, engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians.
Funds totalling $2.25 million were raised by SFU and matched by the Province's Leading Edge Endowment Fund to create a $4.5 million endowment to establish this BC Leadership Chair.
Previously the Director of the Center for Neuromagnetism at New York University Medical Center, Dr. Ribary will create provincial, national and international research networks aimed at creating new techniques for understanding the structure, function and internal communications within the brain.
This information will potentially lead to new behaviour modification, drug and surgical treatments for a wide variety of cognitive disabilities and neurological and psychiatric illnesses.
Dr. Ribary will be based at SFU’s Burnaby campus but will spend part of his time down the hill at the Down Syndrome Research Foundation, where he will have access to Western Canada’s only magnetoencephalography system (MEG).
He will also collaborate with the Child and Family Research Institute at B.C.’s Children Hospital and at UBC. The state-of-the-art MEG brain imaging device provides precise information about the location and time of brain function relating to diagnostic purposes for Down Syndrome and various brain disorders.
His own research focuses on imaging and understanding the synchronization of different brain areas. “All areas of the brain can be intact,” he says, “but if the timing of communications between different areas of the brain is off by just a small amount, you will see impairment.”
Because it is possible to distinguish between healthy subjects and those with learning disabilities based on as low as 5/1000 of a second (5msec) brain communication processing, Ribary says it’s important to better understand and quantify these brain dynamics.
A first step in his research program is to coordinate interdisciplinary teams of researchers who will integrate the latest multimodal signal processing technologies into brain imaging research. This will connect neurobiologists, psychologists, medical practitioners, engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians.
Funds totalling $2.25 million were raised by SFU and matched by the Province's Leading Edge Endowment Fund to create a $4.5 million endowment to establish this BC Leadership Chair.